First of all what I’ve written below is not meant to be a review. I’m sure you’ll soon find well written reviews all over the web in a few days. I just want to describe a few features of iPhoto that I am excited about.

Beam

I can share to twitter, facebook, and even Flickr³. But the coolest feature is “Beam”. I can take a photo with my iPhone 4, edit in iPhoto and then and beam it wireless to my iPad 2.

I turned on the beaming feature of iPhoto on both my iPad and iPhone.

I then selected a photo ( you can select multiple ) and beamed it over to my iPhone. iPhoto automatically detects iOS devices running iPhoto so you can wirelessly beam between your iPad and iPhone over a shared Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection. Sweet!

Journal

Journal lets you select a bunch of photos and create a photo collage. You can arrange your photos manually or use of the prebuilt templates. I chose a few of my photos and added a bit of descriptions text, a header and a date widget.

The resulting Journal can be shared via email or send to iTunes. If you chose email, the recipients get a link to a web site for viewing. One cool and interesting thing I noticed is that I could update the journal later and the changes would be reflected on the web site.

I think the video below does a better job of explaining how it works than any text I can think of tonight.

Using journaling in iPhoto for iOS from Khürt Williams on Vimeo.

On the Mac, the only option has been using the web based version Instapaper or Read It Later. Read Later is free app that was recently released in the app store that offers a native OS solution.

What is Read Later?

Read Later gives you access to your Read It Later or Instapaper. accounts in a single easy-to-use application. Within Read Later you can manage your read later account without logging in to the services via browser.

This Mac OS X app syncs articles from Read It Later or Instapaper. However, to use the Instapaper service you’ll need a paid subscription. Instapaper Pro users can use the app; regular Instapaper users will have to pay $1 a month.

Similar to the iOS apps, Read Later provides adjustable fonts, text sizes¹ line spacing and margins.

Read Later has support for archiving articles to services like Evernote, Pinboard, and Delicious and has sharing option for social sites like Twitter and Facebook². You can set these up via the application’s preferences panel. The application also supports OS X Lion’s full screen mode.

You can also view the article in it’s original form.

I prefer reading my saved articles on my iPad but sometimes my iPad needs charging. During those times I can catch up on my reading with Read Later. Read Later is free in the Mac App Store.

iCloud When Apple realeased iOS last year, it also introduced iCloud. iCloud allows seamless sync of contact, calendar, mail, photos, and documents (iWork) between iOS devices. Add a contact on your iPhone and immediately have it appear on your iPad. Take a photo with your iPhone and seconds later watch it on your iPad. Apple did bring some of the sync capability to OS X Lion but it was limited to contacts and calendar. I could not, for example, create a document in Page on the Mac and continue editing on my iPad. First, I had to upload it to iCloud via Safari. With OS X Mountain Lion, the circle is complete.

One key addition is Documents in the Cloud. In iOS 5, apps like Pages take advantage of automatic saving to iCloud. With OS X Mountain Lion, the circle is complete as all documents in the iWork suite of apps will save this way as well. (via TechCrunch)

In OS X Mountain Lion, sign in once with your Apple ID and iCloud is automatically set up across your Mac.1 That means right away iCloud keeps your mail, calendars, contacts, documents, and more up to date on every device you use. So when you add, delete, or edit something on your Mac, it happens on your iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. And vice versa. (source Apple)

So now, I can work from any Apple device! I expect third-party app developers will update their OS X and iOS apps to take advantage of the feature. OS X Mountain Lion is starting to look like iOS.

Messages/Reminders/Notes/Notifications

The three apps — Messages, Reminders, Notes — were introduced with iOS 5. On iOS, Messages allow iPhone (iPad) users to text each other for free. The Notes and Reminders app on iOS 5 sync back to the notes and reminders section of the OS X Mail client. With Mountain Lion, this apps gets separate treatment as a stand alone app along with Reminders.

iOS 5 introduced a new notification system for the iPhone and iPad. This notification system now comes to OS X. I wonder what the Growl developers are thinking right now?

Gatekeeper

I don’t know too much about this one except that Apple will require developers who want to sell apps in the Mac App Store to register and digital sign their software. One notable feature is that users will get to choose whether to allow apps developed independently of the Mac App Store onto their Macs.

Apple wants to help you steer clear of malware even when you download applications from places other than the Mac App Store. That’s why Apple created the Developer ID. As part of the Mac Developer Program, Apple gives developers a unique Developer ID for signing their apps. A developer’s digital signature allows Gatekeeper to verify that their app is not known malware and that it hasn’t been tampered with. If an app doesn’t have a Developer ID associated with it, Gatekeeper can let you know before you install it. It’s another step Apple takes to keep your Mac safe. (source Apple)