OS X Yosemite Brings Cloud-Enabled Photos App To Mac

Apple has made the new Photos application available for Mac with the release of Mac OS X Yosemite 10.10.3, which also includes a raft of security updates and stability improvements.

Photos replaces iPhoto and introduces iCloud Photo Library, which syncs and stores images in the cloud to be accessed on Mac, iPhone or iPad.

Mac Photos

The feature automatically monitors how much storage is left on each device and will upload a high resolution image to the cloud but store a low resolution file locally if a user is running out of space.

Older images are dealt with first and the high resolution image can be downloaded at any time. The other noteworthy feature of Photos is shared albums, which can be accessed by up to 100 people.

Users are given 5GB of free iCloud storage, but can upgrade this up to 1TB for a fee, just like rival cloud services from Box, Dropbox, Microsoft and Google.

Mac OS X 10.10.3 adds the 300 multi-racial Emoji characters making waves on iOS and also serves up stability and security updates for Safari and Bluetooth. Connectivity is improved with enhanced Wi-Fi performance and a solution to an issue that might cause Bluetooth to disconnect.

On the security side, Apple fixes multiple vulnerabilities in OpenSSL and the OS X Kernel. A full list of security updates can be seen here.

OS X Yosemite debuted late last year, boasting an iOS inspired ‘flat’ interface and promising closer interaction between Mac, iPhone and iPad. The introduction of the ‘Handoff’ feature has facilitated such functionality, while programmes like iWork are available on all devices with files also stored in on iCloud.

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