Available today as a beta to all iDevice owners who update

Oct 20, 2014 08:33 GMT  ·  By

Apple is either making it easier to have your frisky photos leaked online, or it is taking a new approach to save storage space on your iDevice. Either way, iCloud Photo Library is launching today with iOS 8.1.

Available as a beta during its first run on iOS devices, iCloud Photo Library is a new feature that allows users to have their photos automatically saved to iCloud, instead of their device’s physical memory.

What this means for your photos

iCloud Photo Library isn’t necessarily an all-new feature in iOS. It’s an expanded version of Photo Stream (introduced years ago) that allows you to optimize phone storage by keeping only compressed versions of your photos and videos on the iDevice while uploading the full-res versions to the cloud.

All the photos and videos uploaded to iCloud become instantly accessible to all of the user’s iCloud-enabled devices, and the user can choose to download and keep the originals stored on the iPhone’s / iPad’s physical memory. In the iCloud settings panel on an iDevice there will also be an option to upload all photos to My Photo Stream.

iCloud Photo Library on iCloud.com

The new iCloud Photo Library is already available on iCloud.com for beta testers of iOS 8.1. Later today, it will roll out to the masses.

Apple says that “The new Photos app works seamlessly to keep your entire photo library, including all your videos, stored in the cloud and up-to-date on all your iOS devices. To use Photos, go to iCloud Settings on your iOS device, tap on Photos, and turn on iCloud Photo Library.”

On iCloud, users will be offered a similar view as they get on their iDevice, complete with Moments and Albums. Downloading photos from the web interface is as easy as grabbing an image and dragging it to the desktop. On iOS, users can specify on the spot what they want to do with that image.

What else is in iOS 8.1?

Later today (we don’t know for sure when), Apple will be rolling out this update to open up access to iCloud Photo Library Beta, Instant Hotspot, and SMS Relay for OS X Yosemite, Apple Pay access, and a few other things as well.

You’ll be able to download and install this update on any iDevice starting with iPhone 4S. However, not all devices get the same features. For example, Apple Pay works with the Touch ID fingerprint sensor on Apple’s newest iDevices, which leaves out the iPhone 4S and a bunch of iPads.