Apple on the mysterious “Send to Web Gallery” button
I’m not really sure whether this will put to rest the conspiracy theories over the “Send to Web Gallery” button that appeared on some users’ iPhones last week or just fan the flames, but Apple has released a support document that provides more details on the functionality.
Most of the information deals with using the Web Gallery itself, but Apple does spell out the prerequisites for the service:
Now, note that not all of those requirements are necessary for the button to show up on your phone. For example, I don’t have iLife ‘08 installed, so the last two are pretty much out.iPhone Software Version 1.0.1 or later
An active .Mac account (full membership account—not just email)
iPhone configured with a .Mac mail account (the same account to which you published the Web Gallery)
An iPhoto ’08 album published to a .Mac Web Gallery. See this document for more information on creating a Web Gallery.
The Web Gallery is configured to “Allow photo uploading by email” as shown in the iPhoto ’08 Publish Settings dialog shown below.
Apple also offers the following advice to those having trouble getting the button to appear:
If the Send to Web Gallery option does not appear on iPhone, and you have installed iPhone Software 1.0.1 or later, press the Home button to exit Photos, wait an hour before you tap Photos, and then try again. During that hour, it’s OK to use other features of iPhone.iPhone Atlas, who spotted the document, think that “This essentially confirms that some sort of network-based trigger — not a time-based mechanism — invokes the “Send to Web Gallery” option.” I’m not sure I agree that it’s confirmed; I still wonder if there’s something else going on. Otherwise, why wait an hour? Seems arbitrary either way.
Oh well. Not unlike the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop, the world may never know.
Much more interesting to conspiracy theorists, if I may suggest, is the fact that the iPhone screenshot that Apple provides is slightly crooked (above), suggesting that the picture was taken by a camera and not via a screenshot utility on the phone itself. C’mon Apple, haven’t you seen the iPhone screenshot utility?
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Comments (6)
So, what's the big deal with that button. All it does is create an email, stick the picture in it (remember, 640x480 when sending via email) and sends the email to the web gallery.
It would be great if the camera on the phone was a VGA camera like my RAZR had, but this thing is supposed to be 2MP or 1600x1200. Not exactly what I was hoping for from Apple.
I suppose it can be used as an interim post until you can get home with your iPhone, import the pictures into iPhoto, then update your web gallery from home.
Posted by Dave M.![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://iphone.macworld.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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August 15, 2007 9:32 PM
I matched all the "prerequisites" and I can post the pictures 100% of the time.
Posted by Marco Papa | August 16, 2007 2:27 AM
Marco Papa: Can you send an email with a picture in it to your web gallery from your iPhone? That's all the "Send to Web Gallery" button does. At least that's all it did for me when I checked it out.
If it doesn't, I would almost venture to guess that there is something wrong with the web gallery software taking emails. But who knows.
As it stands now, i'm not going to be using that feature anyway, since sending an iPhone picture via email shrinks it down to 640x480.
Posted by Dave M. | August 16, 2007 5:50 PM
I *don't* think that the one hour is for anything network-related. I suspect that one hour is the timeout for running apps on the iPhone.
On the iPhone, you don't really 'quit' applications -- when you go to the home screen, they seem to stay open in the background until either another program needs a lot of memory, or time elapses (I'd say the time out is less than an hour).
I think Apple is having you stay away from Photos for an hour to guarantee that the app quits and that you're re-launching it.
Posted by Scott S | August 16, 2007 7:14 PM
Scott S: If that were the case, why not simply reboot the phone? Then the app will definitely be closed.
No, I also think that the statement was for the user to wait for the "turn on this feature" flag to be sent to the phone.
Posted by Dave M.![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://iphone.macworld.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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August 16, 2007 11:53 PM
By the way, did you guys try to browse a Web Gallery using the iPhone Safari browser? I had just downloaded 200 pictures to a Web Gallery taken with a 10 Mega Pixel Canon XTi of my trip to Italy. When you browse using the iPhone you first get a page with buttons for each of the Galleries. If you pick one then small thumbnails of ALL the pictures in the gallery will fill the window. If you pick one picture it will display in full screen and if you tap it overlays pop up at top and bottom, with the picture name, next and previous controls and a continuous display button. I was surprised to see that the speed of "play" was quite reasonable at EDGE speeds. Once you've gone though all the pictures once they must be "cached" by the Safari browser as they come up real fast.
Posted by Marco Papa | August 17, 2007 2:48 AM