CES 2002: Apple has today announced iPhoto, a new application for its OS X operating system which is designed to make it easier to download, organize, categorize, share and print your digital camera images. iPhoto supports a wide range of digital cameras and can automatically download images from the camera into a 'roll'. The best thing about iPhoto is the extremely simple "Import / Organize / Edit / Book / Share" sequence, this makes it easy for the complete novice to connect their camera and orgnize their photos just as they would if they had hard prints in front of them (only better).

Not to ignore the new 800 Mhz flat-screen iMac, to see how iPhoto fits into Apples new "Digital Hub" vision, watch this video.

Download Apple iPhoto 1.0 (requires OS X 10.1.2 or better)

Apple iPhoto

Import

Import is the start of the process, it takes images from your connected camera and places them into a 'Roll' of images on your hard disk. The import system supports a fairly wide range of digital cameras with USB connections, you can check the list here.

Organize

In the organize process you can drag and drop images into albums and decide on the order images appear in the album, albums can be organized by theme (keyword) and you can choose the size of thumbnails in the album.

Edit

iPhoto's weakest point is probably its editting, while you can rotate, constrain, crop, turn black and white and apply red-eye correction there's nothing more for the avid photo editor.. Perhaps something which will come in iPhoto 1.5.

Book

Once you've organized your images you can order a book, a printed hard-back in a design theme of your choosing. Apple are pricing each book at $29.99 for the first 10 pages. Kodak's Ofoto will be providing the photo printing for this service (binding is handled by another company).

Share

Just click on Share to share an album (or group of selected images).

Note: all screenshots courtesy of Apple, we'll be doing our own review of iPhoto at a later date