Tech Tuesday: Photostream explained

Some photos are not quite worthy of Facebook, but are must-sees to extreme enthusiasts of your child. That’s why my husband and I set up a few Photo Streams on our iPhones.

A photo stream is simply an album that can be shared with a group. The photos are located in the cloud, so no need to send group texts, emails with photos attached, or push them out to Facebook. You don’t need any special app. All you need is iOS 6.0 or later.

Since my parents all have iPhones, but don’t check Facebook very often, this is a way to push all the grandparents a photo at once. We invited them all to subscribe our family photo streams by adding their email addresses. When we share a picture to our stream, they get an alert on their phone. If they want to look at the stream at anytime, they just click the icon that says Photo Stream and has a cloud icon at the bottom of the screen when you are in the Photo app.

To get this photo sharing party started, on your iOS devices, go to Settings > iCloud > Photo Stream, and turn on My Photo Stream and Shared Photo Streams.

Now, when you take 17 pictures of your baby sleeping, instead of putting them all on Facebook, simply share them with the Photo Stream you’ve created. To do this, click the sharing icon that you normally use to decide if you are going to push a photo to a text message, email, or Facebook, and a new choice will be Photo Stream.

In addition to the stream intended for our parents, I also created one just for me and my husband called “House”. When I was shopping for dining tables for us, I walked around a store snapping photos with my phone. I added the photos to the House stream. Ryan’s phone alerted him that there were pictures added, and we were both able to post comments on the pictures. Now that the House stream exists, we can use it whenever there’s a need to share a photo just between us. Perhaps he’ll receive a picture of an overflowing toilet one day, while he’s on a business trip.

I can imagine using this feature if you have a shopping BFF who you’d like to share ideas with. (Note to Heather: If you tend to like the clothes I send you, set up a Photo Stream for us to share. If you don’t, pretend like you haven’t read this post.)

Here’s how it looks after you’ve shared a photo and your stepmom, who does not have a Facebook account but does have an iPhone, sees it.

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Whitney

RookieMoms.com co-founder Whitney lives with her husband, son, and daughter in the San Francisco Bay Area where she writes about parenting, crafts, and activities that moms can do with babies in tow. She and Heather also publish 510Families.com, a site for East Bay parents.