Photo Stream is a nice feature of iCloud that pushes all of your pictures automatically to your other iOS devices and your Mac with iPhoto or Aperture. If you haven’t used it before, this means if you take a picture on your iPhone, it will automatically show up in the Photo Stream on your iPad, and also in iPhoto on your Mac. Oddly, there isn’t an option to choose a destination other than iPhoto or Aperture in Mac OS X though, but this cool trick allows you to specify a folder and then download all the images from iCloud to your Mac, without using iPhoto or Aperture.

In order to use the following script, you will need iOS 5 and OS X 10.7.2 or later, as well as iCloud set up and configured and the Photo Stream option enabled in Mac OS X’s iCloud System Preferences.

Save Photo Stream Images to a Folder in Mac OS X

• Open AppleScript Editor, found at /Applications/Utilities/AppleScript Editor.app
• In a new blank AppleScript window, paste in the following code, replacing “USERNAME” with the short user name of your Mac OS X home directory:

tell application "Finder"
set this_folder to "Macintosh HD:Users:USERNAME:Library:Application Support:iLifeAssetManagement:assets" as alias
set target_folder to "Macintosh HD:Users:USERNAME:Pictures:MyStream" as alias
try
duplicate (every file of the entire contents of this_folder whose name contains "IMG") to the target_folder with replacing
end try
end tell

• This will look something like this in the AppleScript editor:

• Adjust the target_folder variables as appropriate – Change “Macintosh HD” if your hard drive is named something else, and change “MyStream” if you want the final directory to be something other than that name located in the user Pictures directory – remember with AppleScript, rather than slashes the colon is used instead to type and show file and folder paths
• Run the script to verify that it works and then save the script with an appropriate name like “PhotoStreamDownloader”, and select “Application” as the file format for easy access and launching later

Now anytime you want to download your Photo Stream to your Mac, just launch that saved script app and you will grab your latest Photo Stream images to the configure directory in Mac OS X. For best results, place the application into your /Applications directory and add it to Launchpad for easy future use.

AppleScript Editor is fairly intuitive, and if you entered a directory or path wrong when you attempt to run the script it will let you know with an “AppleScript Error” message. If you get a “iLifeAssetManagement:assets wasn’t found” message, then you haven’t enabled Photo Stream in iCloud’s System Preference panel.

Hopefully a future update to iCloud and Photo Stream will allow us to choose an image download destination directly, but until then this great trick from iDownloadblog works just fine.

Like this? Check out some more iCloud tips.

If you haven’t set up iCloud and Find My iPhone yet, now is a good time to do so. This friendly reminder comes to us from a recent New York Times article, which details the story of a police officer using iCloud to bust an iPhone thief and return the iPhone to its rightful owner using none other than the free Find My iPhone service:

The ace up the sleeve of Officer Garland, an avid Apple consumer was something called “Find My iPhone,” a free 5.4-megabyte piece of software, or app, that he had on the iPhone in his pocket.

Punching in the victim’s Apple ID … he quickly determined by the location of a small gray phone icon on a digital map that the robber was near Eighth Avenue and 51st Street.

As Officer Garland and his partner drove there, the signal source shifted, closer to Eighth Avenue and 49th Street. There, a man later identified by the police as George Bradshaw, 40, of New Lots, Brooklyn, stepped outside a Food Emporium.

Officer Garland pushed the “Play Sound” button on his phone. Instantly, a pinging beep — not unlike the sound of a submarine’s sonar — began emitting from Mr. Bradshaw, 20 feet away.

The victim later identified the robber and got her iPhone back.

So have you configured iCloud and Find My iPhone yet on all your Apple gear? It’s easy to do, read our guide on setting up iCloud and follow the instructions below to enable the specific Find My iPhone (or Find My iPad and Find My Mac) feature. You’ll need iOS 5 or later on the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, or OS X 10.7.2 or later on the Mac.

Setting Up Find My iPhone (or iPad)

You will need an Apple ID, iOS 5 or later on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, and iCloud setup.

• Launch the Settings app
• Locate and tap on “iCloud” – if you are asked for an Apple ID you haven’t setup iCloud yet
• Near the bottom of iCloud settings, look for “Find My iPhone” and switch to “ON”, allow the app to use location services

It’s that easy to turn on, but you’re not quite finished yet because you will want to also install the Find My iPhone app for iOS. The Find My iPhone application is a free download on the iOS App Store, and lets you locate the iOS devices or Macs on a map, send messages and pings to the devices, and even remotely wipe them of their data.

Setting Up Find My Mac

Assuming you already have iCloud enabled in OS X 10.7.2, setting up Find My Mac is very easy:

• Launch System Preferences
• Click on “iCloud”
• Click the checkbox next to “Find My Mac” and then click “Allow”

The Mac will now be accessible via the iOS Find My iPhone app in the device list, and can also be pinpointed on a map using the iCloud.com website.

If you have a new computer, you’re going to want to authorize it with iTunes and an Apple ID. Authorizing iTunes does quite a bit, it lets you sync apps, books, music, movies, and other content from the iTunes Store, re-download past apps from the App Store, it enables Home Sharing with iTunes, and also allows for some iCloud specific features like Automatic Downloads. In other words it’s basically essential, and it’s very easy to do, make sure you have have an active Apple ID before continuing:

1. Launch iTunes on the new computer (PC or Mac)
2. Pull down the “Store” menu and select “Authorize This Computer”
3. Enter your Apple ID and password at the next screen and click on “Authorize”

You can authorize up to five personal computers of any variety of Macs or Windows PC’s. In other words, up to five computers can sync and share your data and purchases. If you go over that number, you’ll need to deauthorize one of the computers before authorizing a new one.

iCloud and iOS includes the ability to sync some iCloud data directly over a 3G cellular connection when a wireless network isn’t available. For now, this is limited to “Documents & Data” from the iWork suite of apps, which includes Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. This is a great feature, but due to the bandwidth usage, it should be used sparingly by those who don’t have large data plans with their carrier.

• Launch Settings and tap on “iCloud”
• Tap on “Documents & Data” and slide “Use Cellular” to ON

Be sure to closely monitor data usage with this and other cellular features as to avoid costly overage charges, unless you have an unlimited data plan, of course.

If you signed up for iTunes Match and you’re seeing some peculiar icons in your music library alongside track names, don’t miss this chart put together by Apple that explains what each icon means, helping you troubleshoot the problem.

The icons include:

• Cloud with a slash through it – ineligible for iTunes Match
• X’ed out cloud – removed from iCloud
• Cloud with an exclamation point – error uploading the song
• Double cloud with a slash through it – duplicate song exists
• Empty cloud – song is waiting to be processed

Why the cloud icons anyway? Because iTunes Match is part of iCloud, of course.

With iCloud and the “Find My iPhone” feature, you can send messages to your remote Apple gear. These come through in the form of a pop-up window in Mac OS X and a notification in iOS 5, and while there’s a variety of uses for this, it’s also a fun way to send a quick message to someone using your hardware, be it a loved one or a thief. You can also choose to play a pinging sound with the notification, it will repeatedly play at full volume until someone acknowledges the notification, guaranteeing that it can’t be ignored.

You’ll need iCloud enabled and have iOS 5+ on the iPad or iPhone, and OS X 10.7.2+ on the Mac, and all hardware must be sharing the same iCloud ID.

Send a Message to Your Apple Hardware from iCloud

We’re going to send a message to a MacBook Air for the purpose of this walkthrough, but it’s identical on an iPad, iPhone, iPod touch too:

• Go to iCloud.com and login
• Click on the “Find My iPhone” button – it will say iPhone even if you want to send a message to a Mac, iPad, or iPod



• A list of compatible devices will load in the left menu titled “My Devices” and the location of the device will appear on a map
• Click on the blue “i” button to bring up a the “Find My Mac” (or iPhone/iPad) control panel for that machine, select the “Play Sound or Send Message” button



• Type your message and click on “Send” , keep the ON switch for “Play Sound” if you want the loud pinging sound to repeat until the notification is acknowledged

Messages are delivered practically instantaneous. From the users end they look like the pop-up at the top of the screen, and the sender will get a confirmation in the email that is attached to their iCloud account:

Bonus points if you send a nice message to a significant other or loved one, or if you gently nudge your iPad hogging roommate who is addicted to Temple Run.

After you’ve made the transition to iCloud from MobileMe, the option to remove the old and now obsolete MobileMe menu bar icon disappears. It’s easy to get rid of though, as Tony R shows us in this tip he sent in:

• Hold down the Command key and click and hold on the old MobileMe icon, then just drag it out of the menubar

The little icon will disappear into a puff of smoke. You can use the same command key trick to rearrange menubar items and remove other ones as well.

If you haven’t done so yet don’t forget to get iCloud configured, the basic account is free and it’ll sync data between your Macs and iOS hardware easily.

Thanks for sending this in Tony R!

Update: iTunes Match is now available along with iTunes 10.5.1, download it now to sign up for the music streaming and cloud storage service.

The public release of iTunes Match seems to be approaching quickly as a third beta of iTunes 10.5.1 is made available to developers. The new beta focuses on iTunes Match and includes stability and performance improvements directly related to the iCloud service. Despite Apple missing their originally planned “end of October” release date for Match, 9to5mac notes that the iTunes beta updates are coming out faster, further indicating a public release is soon.

When iTunes Match is released to the public, a subscription will cost $24.99 each year and allow for up to 10 personal computers or iOS devices to access up to 25,000 songs of an iTunes library from anywhere through iCloud. On the software side, iTunes Match requires Mac OS X or Windows, iOS 5, the newest version of iTunes, and iCloud. The yearly fee is separate from the iCloud storage upgrades, and music purchased from iTunes does not count against the 25,000 song limit.

Users can prepare for the iTunes Match service by signing up for and configuring iCloud to work on their desktops and iOS hardware. Once the Match service is made public, using the music service will then just be a matter of downloading the latest version of iTunes and paying the fee through iTunes, and then enabling the service through iOS settings.

Below are the brief attachment notes for the latest beta via 9to5mac:

iTunes 10.5.1 beta 3 is now available. This update includes a number of important stability and performance improvements for iTunes Match. iTunes Match stores your music library in iCloud and allows you to enjoy your collection from anywhere, any time, on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, computer or Apple TV. In order to subscribe to iTunes Match, or continue using your existing subscription, please upgrade to iTunes 10.5.1 beta 3. Once upgraded, turn on iTunes Match on each of your computers and iOS devices. On your computer, choose Store > Turn on iTunes Match. On your iOS device, tap Settings > Music, then turn on iTunes Match. On your Apple TV, please turn off iTunes Match under Settings > General > iTunes Store. The songs on your computer should not be affected. As always, please backup regularly and do not delete the music you add to iCloud from your computer.

Using iCloud, sharing a Calendar from your iPhone, iPad, or Mac OS X iCal with anyone else is now easier than ever. It’s a straight forward process that requires iCloud, set it up if you haven’t already and get sharing, here’s how:

• Go to http://icloud.com and login with your Apple ID that’s configured with iCloud
• Click on the “Calendar” icon
• From the left side Calendar menu, click the little radiowave icon next to the Calendar you want to share with others
• Enter the iCloud email address of users who you want to share the calendar with, then click “Share”

The recipient can then find the shared calendar in their own iCloud Calendars list, but all parties must be using iOS 5+ and Mac OS X 10.7.2+. You can also choose “Public Calendar” to share the calendar with the world.

Great tip discovered by TheGraphicMac.

Once you have iCloud set up, it becomes easier than ever to keep recent backups of your iPhone and iPad, the backup starts automatically any time the device is connected to a power source and the synced computer is turned on and connected to the same wifi network.

Automatic backups are great but if you want to be absolutely certain you have the most recent backup stored in iCloud before you do something like an iOS Restore or jailbreak, you’ll probably want to do a manual backup first. Manual backups are also highly recommended if you don’t use the automatic backup feature.

Start a Manual Backup to iCloud from an iPhone or iPad

You’ll need iOS 5+ and iCloud, and a Wi-Fi connection for this to work:

• Launch the “Settings” app
• Tap on “iCloud” and scroll to the bottom, then tap on “Storage & Backup”
• Navigate down and tap on “Back Up Now”

iOS will give you an estimated time before the backup is complete, and there’s a progress bar to watch too. It’s generally fairly quick but since it’s uploading to iCloud it is partially dependent on your internet connection speed.

Remember that you can also backup from iTunes as well, but that won’t go to iCloud.