iPhoto is a discontinued

digital photograph Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The digitized image is ...

manipulation software application developed by Apple Inc. It was included with every

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tech ...

from 2002 to 2015, when it was replaced with Apple's Photos application. Originally sold as part of the iLife suite of digital media management applications, iPhoto is able to import, organize, edit, print and share

digital photo Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The digitized image i ...

History

iPhoto was announced at Macworld 2002, during which

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; ...

(then-CEO of Apple) also announced that

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

would be the default operating system on new Macs, and revealed new

iMac iMac is a family of all-in-one Mac desktop computers designed and built by Apple Inc. It has been the primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since its debut in August 1998, and has evolved through seven distinct forms. In i ...

and

iBook iBook is a line of laptop computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from 1999 to 2006. The line targeted entry-level, consumer and education markets, with lower specifications and prices than the PowerBook, Apple's higher-en ...

models. On March 7, 2012, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced an iOS-native version of iPhoto alongside the third-generation iPad. On June 27, 2014, Apple announced that they would cease development of iPhoto and work on a transition to their new Photos app. On February 5, 2015 Apple included a preview of Photos with a beta release of OS X Yosemite. On April 8, 2015, Apple released OS X Yosemite 10.10.3, which included the new Photos app. iPhoto and Aperture were discontinued and removed from the Mac App Store, but can still be downloaded by users who previously purchased them. macOS Mojave 10.14 was the last version of macOS to officially support iPhoto. However, a third party application allows iPhoto to run on macOS Catalina and newer.

Features

macOS version

iPhoto is designed to allow the importing of pictures from

digital camera A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devic ...

s, local storage devices such as USB flash drives, CDs, DVDs and hardrives to a user's iPhoto Library. Almost all digital cameras are recognized without additional software. iPhoto supports most common image

file format A file format is a Computer standard, standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary format, pr ...

s, including several

Raw image format A camera raw image file contains unprocessed or minimally processed data from the image sensor of either a digital camera, a motion picture film scanner, or other image scanner. Raw files are named so because they are not yet processed and the ...

s. iPhoto also supports videos from cameras, but editing is limited to trimming clips. After photos are imported, they can be titled, labeled, sorted and organized into groups (known as "events"). Individual photos can be edited with basic image manipulation tools, such as a red-eye filter, contrast and brightness adjustments, cropping and resizing tools, and other basic functions. iPhoto did not, however, provide the comprehensive editing functionality of programs such as

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ances ...

's own

Aperture In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. An ...

Adobe Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for '' mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of ...

Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in ras ...

Album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

) or

GIMP GIMP ( ; GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image manipulation (retouching) and image editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized ...

. iPhoto offers numerous options for sharing photos. Photo albums can be made into dynamic

slideshow A slide show (slideshow) is a presentation of a series of still images ( slides) on a projection screen or electronic display device, typically in a prearranged sequence. The changes may be automatic and at regular intervals or they may be man ...

s, with the option to add music imported from iTunes. Photos can be shared via iMessage,

Mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin ...

Flickr Flickr ( ; ) is an American image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was a popular way for amateur and professiona ...

and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

. Creating and sharing iCloud Photostreams is possible as well. iPhoto is also able to sync photo albums to any

iPod The iPod is a discontinued series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was released on October 23, 2001, about months after the Macintosh version of iTunes ...

with a color display. These

s might also have an audio/video output to allow photos to be played back, along with music, on any modern

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication Media (communication), medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of Transmission (telecommunications), television tra ...

. Additionally, photos can be printed to a local printer, or, in certain markets, be sent over the internet to

Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

for professional printing. iPhoto users can order a range of products, including standard prints, posters, cards, calendars, and 100-page hardcover or softcover volumes, although such services are available only to users in certain markets.

iOS version

At an Apple media event on March 7, 2012, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced a new version of iPhoto for iOS. iPhoto for iOS was made available that day on the App Store for 4.99, alongside the already-released

iMovie iMovie (known at times as iMovie HD) is a preinstalled video editing application developed by Apple Inc. for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS devices. It was originally released in 1999 as a Mac OS 8 application bundled with the first FireWire-en ...

and GarageBand for iOS. It officially supports the

iPhone 4 The iPhone 4 is a smartphone that was designed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is the fourth generation of the iPhone lineup, succeeding the iPhone 3GS and preceding the 4S. Following a number of notable leaks, the iPhone 4 was first unve ...

and later,

iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a music pl ...

(4th and 5th generations), iPad 2 and later and iPad Mini (1st and 2nd generations), but users discovered that it could be installed manually on older devices using Apple's iPhone Configuration Utility. iPhoto for iOS offers a feature set fairly comparable to that of its Mac counterpart. It can organize photos that are synced to the device or taken with its camera. Editing features include color correction tools and photo effects, as well as cropping and straightening tools. iPhoto for iOS lacks tools for creating books, calendars, cards and ordering prints. It can, however, create "Photo Journals": digital photo collages that can be uploaded to

iCloud iCloud is a Personal cloud, cloud service from Apple Inc. launched on October 12, 2011 as a successor to MobileMe. , the service had an estimated 850 million users, up from 782 million users in 2016. iCloud enables users to sync their data to t ...

and shared. iPhoto for iOS was highly praised for its professional tools, good performance and compatibility. iPhoto for iOS was discontinued in 2014 and removed from the App Store in favor of the Photos app, which shipped with iOS 8.

References

External links