14 DAY TRIAL // This week, Apple greets registered developers and OS X beta testers with the first Yosemite beta which includes Photos, a promising replacement for iPhoto that offers management, editing and cloud syncing features.
The Mac makers confirm its availability on the News and Announcements section of the Dev Center: “OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 is now available and includes Photos, an all-new photography app for the Mac. Take a test-drive and let us know what you think.”
A single focus area
Unlike traditional OS X betas, 10.10.3 build 14D72i is entirely dedicated to the new Photos app, which lets you browse photos by time and location in Moments, Collections, and Years views.
Users can navigate their library using Photos, Shared, Albums, and Projects tabs, store photos and videos in iCloud Photo Library, and access photos and videos stored in iCloud Photo Library from any device as well as from the web interface of iCloud.com.
Photos packs simplistic yet powerful tools for editing. You can optimize an entire photo with a single click, or go deep into the manipulation features and make precise tweaks and adjustments.
Apple says Photos can be used to “create professional-quality photo books with simplified bookmaking tools, new Apple-designed themes, and new square book formats.” When Photos rolls out publicly, customers will be able to buy prints in square and panoramic sizes.
Plenty of known issues
Photos is not here just to delight developers but also to be thoroughly tested in areas where the software has proven buggy. Apple warns that some buttons and other UI elements may not appear correctly, while edits imported from iOS may not appear until the image is opened in Edit view.
Images may sometimes be slow to display in Edit view, animations may not appear correctly when rotating photos in the Albums view, dragging and dropping photos may not work, iCloud storage estimates could be incorrect, etc.
Apple advises developers to use the current developer beta of iOS 8.2 with Photos for OS X and iCloud Photo Library.