|
|
Friday, March 14, 2003
Note to Apple: I apologize.
Regular readers of this column know that I have been critical of Apple's .Mac Internet technology in the past, specifically the integration with OS X and the Finder. I stand by my earlier complaints, but I have to give credit where credit is due: the web publishing feature of iPhoto is the slickest thing I've seen in a long time.
I took a few snapshots at MK and SS's birthday party tonight, and I wanted to put the pictures on the web. I use iPhoto to store the pictures from my point-and-shoot digital camera, but I usually use Photoshop to generate photo galleries. I didn't want to go through all of that tonight, so I decided to try iPhoto's built-in "publish to .Mac" feature for the first time.
Wow. This is one of the best pieces of software I've ever seen. You just click on the photos you want, type in the captions, and click "Publish". That's it. It automatically generates the HTML pages, uploads all of the files, and even republishes the navigation in your old galleries so they link to the new gallery.
I've been a little skeptical of Apple's "Digital Hub" concept, but the whole thing became crystal clear to me while using this feature. Combining streamlined hardware interaction, easy-to-use software, and an integrated Web publishing mechanism is incredibly powerful.
Imagine that you just bought a digital camera and know nothing about computers. You plug your camera into the computer, turn it on, and iPhoto automatically launches and downloads the photos for you. You browse through the images and use the simple iPhoto tools to crop, remove red-eye, tweak the contrast, etc. - no Photoshop experience required. You pick the ones you like, click a few buttons, and the pictures are on the Internet. The site even gives you a link to email your friends and tell them about the site. The elapsed time from when you finished taking the pictures to when they were available on the Internet was less than ten minutes. Brilliant. This is an utterly compelling solution for the novice computer user.
Hell, it's a compelling solution for anyone! I consider myself to be pretty tech savvy, and I had so much fun creating my first gallery that I created another one. I'm so excited about it that I'm here now telling you. In a world where computers cause so much aggravation, it's thrilling to see something so useful work so well.
Whatever its shortcomings as a company, it cannot be denied that Apple makes technology exciting, and they do it in a way that's accessible to the masses. Macs may not be for everyone, and they have their own set of unique problems, but you will not find solutions this anywhere else. If you're not a computer whiz or just want to spend more time using the computer instead of fixing it, then the Mac is the best thing going. It's easy to be skeptical of that statement, but when you use iPhoto it just seems so obvious.
Someone please remind me of this the next time iDisk crashes my machine.
BTW, here are the photo galleries I posted tonight:
Michael and Stacy's Birthday
Just Some Photos
Regular readers of this column know that I have been critical of Apple's .Mac Internet technology in the past, specifically the integration with OS X and the Finder. I stand by my earlier complaints, but I have to give credit where credit is due: the web publishing feature of iPhoto is the slickest thing I've seen in a long time.
I took a few snapshots at MK and SS's birthday party tonight, and I wanted to put the pictures on the web. I use iPhoto to store the pictures from my point-and-shoot digital camera, but I usually use Photoshop to generate photo galleries. I didn't want to go through all of that tonight, so I decided to try iPhoto's built-in "publish to .Mac" feature for the first time.
Wow. This is one of the best pieces of software I've ever seen. You just click on the photos you want, type in the captions, and click "Publish". That's it. It automatically generates the HTML pages, uploads all of the files, and even republishes the navigation in your old galleries so they link to the new gallery.
I've been a little skeptical of Apple's "Digital Hub" concept, but the whole thing became crystal clear to me while using this feature. Combining streamlined hardware interaction, easy-to-use software, and an integrated Web publishing mechanism is incredibly powerful.
Imagine that you just bought a digital camera and know nothing about computers. You plug your camera into the computer, turn it on, and iPhoto automatically launches and downloads the photos for you. You browse through the images and use the simple iPhoto tools to crop, remove red-eye, tweak the contrast, etc. - no Photoshop experience required. You pick the ones you like, click a few buttons, and the pictures are on the Internet. The site even gives you a link to email your friends and tell them about the site. The elapsed time from when you finished taking the pictures to when they were available on the Internet was less than ten minutes. Brilliant. This is an utterly compelling solution for the novice computer user.
Hell, it's a compelling solution for anyone! I consider myself to be pretty tech savvy, and I had so much fun creating my first gallery that I created another one. I'm so excited about it that I'm here now telling you. In a world where computers cause so much aggravation, it's thrilling to see something so useful work so well.
Whatever its shortcomings as a company, it cannot be denied that Apple makes technology exciting, and they do it in a way that's accessible to the masses. Macs may not be for everyone, and they have their own set of unique problems, but you will not find solutions this anywhere else. If you're not a computer whiz or just want to spend more time using the computer instead of fixing it, then the Mac is the best thing going. It's easy to be skeptical of that statement, but when you use iPhoto it just seems so obvious.
Someone please remind me of this the next time iDisk crashes my machine.
BTW, here are the photo galleries I posted tonight:
Michael and Stacy's Birthday
Just Some Photos