He pretty much described the "Journal" functionality of iPhoto for iPhone/iPad. You pick the photos you want to share, create a "journal" with them, and pick Share -> Share to iCloud. From there you can email a link to the journal to your contacts. They receive a link to a really nice gallery.
The journals can be customized, you can change up the layout and add little text boxes and maps and neat stuff like that. It's really exactly what he's looking for.
As far as getting the photos onto your mac- that's what Photo Stream is for. It pulls your photos straight into iPhoto without you having to do anything. It kind of sounds like he's trying to stay away from iPhoto, but that's like arbitrarily saying "I need a solution for this, but I won't use the solution that exists, I need something else!".