iCloud.com beta adds ability to upload photos from browser

Photo: Apple

Today Apple quietly added a new feature to the developer beta version of iCloud.com. Photos can now be uploaded directly from the browser to a user’s iCloud Photo Library, which was introduced with iOS 8.1.

Since Apple isn’t releasing its new Photos app for OS X until next year, this could very well be the only way to upload photos to iCloud from a desktop for months.

For now, you can only upload JPEGs through the iCloud web app, and there’s no telling if Apple will support video uploads down the line.

iCloud Photo Library is essentially an evolved Photo Stream replacement that can automatically store hi-res photos in the cloud and keep low-res copies on a device running iOS 8.1. When the user wants to open a specific photo, iCloud Photo Library pulls down the hi-res version back to the device. It’s a nice effort to save storage, but something that likely won’t appeal to everyone