Photo Stream: What Is It? How do I use it? Does it really work? How To / Review – iOS 5, iCloud

Updated 03/11/2012

Photo Stream was one of the iOS 5/ iCloud features I was most looking forward to. The ease of having my photos pushed directly from my iPhone (which is pretty much the only camera I use anymore) to iCloud then automatically to my other devices (in my case a Mac and an iPad 2) seemed too good to be true… Here’s my findings intermixed with a how-to for you to set up Photo Stream for yourself.

What is it?
This is how Apple describes Photo Stream:
“Take a photo on an iOS device. Or import a photo from your digital camera to your computer. iCloud automatically pushes a copy of that photo over any available Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection to the Photos app on your iOS devices, iPhoto or Aperture on your Mac, and the Pictures Library on your PC.

If you have Photo Stream enabled on your iOS device, every single photo you take appears in a special Photo Stream album that holds your last 1000 photos. You can’t edit or delete photos from your Photo Stream. If you want to touch up a photo or keep a favorite shot permanently, simply save it to your Camera Roll.

But since your Mac has more storage than your iOS device, it automatically imports every picture from your Photo Stream into your photo library so you can edit, delete, and share the ones you want.”

Is it as simple as it sounds?
The best way to understand Photo Stream is to realize what it is not. It is not a online album that synchs your photos to your liking between all of your devices. It’s important to let this idea go (which I believe is the source of many complaints concerning Photo Stream) because if you don’t you will be disappointed with it.

It’s best to think of Photo Stream as just a constant flow of photos (which is implied in the name) that acts as a conduit to route photos to your other devices. Like a stream of flowing water, at anytime you can grab a bucket, dip it in, fill it up and haul it to a different location. Otherwise you have no control over the water, just how much you take and where you transport it to.

How does it work on iOS?
On iOS devices (iPhone, iPad) every photo you take (screen shots too) will be added to your Photo Stream and uploaded to iCloud. Those photos will also save locally (camera roll) only on the device you took the photos with. If you want to save any of the photos from Photo Stream locally on another iOS device you have to save them manually.

To turn on Photo Stream on your iOS device go to: Settings> Photos

To save manually from the stream to another iOS device: 1. While viewing a photo select the corner arrow icon to save image from Photo Stream

2. Select Save to Camera Roll

How does it work on the Mac?
On the Mac side, Photo Stream works almost the same except you have 2 options: turn on/off Automatic Import and Automatic Upload.
• With Automatic Import on: every photo that is uploaded to the stream will automatically save locally on your Mac in the iPhoto library.
• With Automatic Upload on: every photo you import into iPhoto (from any camera or other source) will automatically upload to the stream.
Note: Both of these options are ON by default.

Turn on Photo Stream in iPhoto on your Mac or toggle the other settings here: iPhoto > Prefrences > Photo Stream

How does it work on Apple TV?
I do not own an Apple TV so I cannot comment on its Photo Stream functionality.

Does it work on a Windows PC?
Yes, it does. You need to install the iCloud Control Panel in order to enable this feature. Once you do you’ll be presented with this:

Click here for step-by-step instructions for Windows PC setup

Can I really Not Delete Photos from the Photo Stream?
Well, No and Yes. You cannot delete individual photos from the stream. So if you take 5 photos of the same subject (say in attempt to get the better lighting with each shot) every attempt will upload and you cannot individually get rid of the ones you’d prefer not to keep.

Update 03/10/12: With the release of iOS 5.1 and iPhoto 9.2.2 Apple has added the ability to delete photos from the stream. Yay!

(The following is a how-to delete the entire stream which was more important prior to individual deletion being added to Photo Stream)

What if I want to delete the entire stream?
1. login to iCloud at www.icloud.com

2. Select your user name in the right hand top corner of the iCloud main selection page

3. Select: Advanced

4. Select Reset Photo Stream

Does it really work?
Keep in mind Photo Stream only uploads when your source device (the device you’ve taken the photos with) is connected to Wi-Fi. The photos are suppose to automatically upload once you’ve made that connection, even if you were not Wi-Fi connected when you took the photos. This feature has been a little hit and miss for me:

• Hit: I was on a road trip last week and I took some photos with my new iPhone 4S without a Wi-Fi connection. Once I got to my destination I connected my iPhone to Wi-Fi. A little later I was talking with my wife who was at home. I had her check iPhoto. She opened iPhoto and within minutes the photos that I took several hundred miles away showed up.

• Miss: On the return trip home I took several more photos while having no Wi-Fi connection. Once I got home my iPhone automatically connected to Wi-Fi. A bit later I opened iPhoto on my Mac to look at the photos, they had not shown up. I waited for about 20 minutes, checked again and they still hadn’t shown up, I wait again and still nothing. Since there is no option to force a “synch” with Photo Stream I resorted to turning Photo Stream off and on again. When Photo Stream reloaded the new photos finally showed up.

I’ve also played around with the “master reset” a few times and each time I did a reset it required that I toggle Photo Stream off and on again on both my iPad and iPhone before the Photo Streams would clear out. Apparently this is normal behavior:

From the official FAQ: “On your iOS devices, go to Settings > iCloud > Photo Stream and turn Photo Stream off. This will delete all the photos from your Photo Stream album. If there are any photos you want to keep on your device, make sure to add them to an album or save them to your Camera Roll first.”

Bottom Line
As I stated in the beginning, if you understand that Photo Stream is not a “multi-device, synch-able cloud based photo album” you’ll probably be fairly pleased with it. The price is right since it’s a free service and the photos stored in the stream do not count against your iCloud limit. Photo Stream does work and it sure is nice to have photos automatically show up on any iOS device you have enabled. Not dealing with cables, synching, or using transfer apps and or the old tried and true “email to yourself trick” makes it worth the few quirks of what feels like a very 1.0 version. I hope Apple keeps improving Photo Stream and doesn’t treat it like the iOS Photo App which was neglected for several major iOS revisions before receiving a bit o’ love with the iOS 5 update.

This post is by no means meant to be a complete guide to Photo Stream. If you want to learn more be sure to check out Apple’s Photo Stream FAQ.