Photostream will store the previous 30 days worth of photos automatically. That means, every photo you take on your iOS devices will be sent to Photostream, but only the last 30 days worth of photos will be available there.
If you enable 'Automatic Import' of Photostream in iPhoto (Preferences > Photostream > Automatic Import) then when you launch iPhoto, it will automatically download a copy of any photos that are in your Photostream, and automatically create an Event titled: {MMM YYYY} Photo Stream (eg. "Jul 2012 Photo Stream")
This Event will be automatically kept up to date, as long as iPhoto is open long enough to sync everything required (depends on your connection).
In effect, as long as you open iPhoto once every 30 days and leave it open long enough for your Photostream to be imported, you should never have to manually import a photo from your iOS device at all.
As for removing items from your Camera Roll on your iOS device, as long as you see that they are present in Photostream (or in iPhoto), then it is safe to delete them from your device. (There is no way around this but to do it manually as far as I know.)
Currently, Photostream does not support videos. To import videos, connect your iOS device to iPhoto and import these manually.
As a side note, in order to keep some photos on the device, you can create a smart album in iPhoto along the lines of "Photos taken within the last 30 days" or "Photos rated 4 stars or more", and configure iTunes to sync these to your device. That way, you can be sure that no matter if you clear your Camera Roll on your device, or delete certain photos, you maintain some convenience.
iCloud syncs Safari bookmarks as well as Keychain passwords across your Macs and iOS device today. Simply sign into iCloud on your Macs, and configure both "Safari" and "Keychain" in iCloud settings in System Settings. If you are having trouble getting this to work, check here: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4001
In my experience, iCloud is not as quick, nor as persistent as is Google Sync. It can often take many minutes to get updates, and sometimes it seems to fail outright. This has been improving for sometime now, but IMHO, its not as good as Google.
Alternatives include Xmarks and LastPass. XMarks syncs bookmarks across everything, whether you use Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Mac or Windows. Highly recommended. The Safari support is a little odd, due to Safari not having a similar plugin capability. Lastpass manages passwords for websites, recommended as well.
For your use case, of syncing across Chrome and Safari, ipad, etc: XMarks doesn't work on iPad Safari. You can use Chrome on iPad, and get your bookmarks synced from Chrome, but this doesnt work for Safari. To get Safari to share the same bookmarks:
- On your Mac, Install XMarks for Chrome
- Create XMarks account, and sync your
bookmarks
- Install XMarks for Safari on Mac
- Sign into your account, and
allow XMarks to overwrite your Safari bookmarks
- Make sure iCloud is
syncing Safari Bookmarks
- Ipad/iPhone Safari will now contain same
bookmarks as Chrome.
Best Answer
I am seeing the iCloud Photo Library syncing getting faster in iOS 11, even with my backup phone iPhone 5s.
Prior to iOS 11, it takes as soon as several hours, and up to days for the new photos to show up on all my devices. And at that time, it needs WiFi connection for the sync to happen. **The feature is designed the way that plugging into power and connected to WiFi triggers syncing. **
But in iOS 11, the photos even sync on cellular (but limited, eg. videos excluded). And the photos show up on all my other devices almost instantaneously - within minutes. (And my home and office WiFi is upgraded at all)
To conclude, to make the syncing faster: