.Mac gets Web photo and video galleries, iPhone and YouTube integration
.Mac, the popular Web services suite from Apple is getting an update this morning. Among the newer features is a much-needed upgrade to .Mac's Web photo gallery service, which now ties in with the freshly updated iPhoto '08 and the iPhone. Users will also be able to upload photos to their online galleries via a specialized e-mail address. The new iPhone integration mirrors some of the options that are already in place to shuttle off photos from the device, with a new option to "send to Web gallery," which lets you send photos to their.Mac Web gallery, and their friends who have allowed the option in their own Web galleries.
Also of note, the updated Web galleries will work with movies made with iMovie '08. There's also a new option right in iMovie '08 to send the video straight to YouTube.
We're not seeing anything revolutionary here that hasn't been done on other services such as Flickr and Zooomr, but it does look pretty slick. The one big catch is that you have to be a .Mac subscriber to take advantage of these galleries. This is a nice plus if you use the service, but it's hardly a competitor to other photo services that are open to everyone. The one real surprise from this morning is the storage bump from 1GB to 10GB, which is necessary when you're splitting that space between e-mail, photos, and videos.
Update: To take a look at a Web gallery yourself, Apple has posted an example here. Keep in mind it might be a little slow today, since a lot of people are hitting the page at the same time.
(Credit: Apple.com)
Josh Lowensohn is an associate editor for Webware.com, CNET's blog about cool and otherwise useful Web applications and services. If you've found a site you'd like profiled, shoot him an e-mail. E-mail Josh.
