"Batch" May Be The Perfect Mobile Photo Sharing App (No, Seriously) | Hacker News Reader

"Batch" May Be The Perfect Mobile Photo Sharing App (No, Seriously)

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44 pointsirunbackwards27 comments

This is a very nice app. It's worth downloading and trying just to see the job they've done with the interface. It has a super-polished, slick feel; the prompts and help messages are very casual and conversational; and it guides you through the process in a very nice way. Within moments I'd uploaded a pile of photos, tagged the people in them on FB, and had someone commenting on them.

The only thing I don't love is that the photos end up on batch.com. I guess they have to have a website somewhere, otherwise, what's the point? But I worry about storing my photos on yet another website. I remember when I created all kinds of albums on Sam Odio's startup, Divvyshot, including ones of the birth of my daughter, and garnered all kinds of memorable comments as a result.

Then one day, it was purchased by Facebook and poof, goodbye photo albums, goodbye comments from friends and family.

That said, the sheer convenience of this app might overcome my worries...

While it doesn't help you save your albums or comments, all of your photos are still stored on your camera roll, so you won't lose those if Batch wound up taking a path like Divvyshot (not to imply that that is the path we plan on taking, etc., etc.).

Disclaimer: I work for Batch/Dailybooth.

True, but the same applied to Divvyshot - I still had those photos on my hard drive. In any case, you guys have done a super job and I'm going to just trust you that you're not in for the short haul. ;)

I too am bothered by the photos "ending up" somewhere. What I'd prefer is that batch.com just cached my photos for a time, and after they fell out of the cache they'd have to get them again from me. In the future, serving data off your phone might not seem like such a crazy idea.

The app looks incredible, but you can't get past the splash screen without one of those bookfaces. This is the first time I've been completely locked out of an iOS app I wanted to use for not being on FB.

One wonders why they feature a twitter button in their screenshots and not offer twitter login?

Because, currently, there isn't any way to friend/unfriend anyone through the app. We use your FB social graph to get your connections. By allowing you to go through some other method, twitter, for instance (or just regular old email/password), you wouldn't be able to interact with other people. Granted, you can still SMS/email/tweet your link and have people view your photos, but there would be large parts of the app that would be perpetually empty for you.

It's not to say that FB will be the one and only way to access Batch forever and always, but, for now, in its current state, it makes for a better user experience (I feel, at least) if we do only allow FB logins.

(Disclaimer: While I work for Batch/Dailybooth, the opinions expressed here are my own and are not necessarily the opinions of the company.)

> "This is the first time I've been completely locked out of an iOS app I wanted to use for not being on FB."

Didn't this used to be against app store guidelines?

Also, with the granular permissions of FB, if tying it to FB, why not host the photos on FB?

Because Batch would then be permanently attached to FB and would always require FB login. There may be a point in the future where Batch allows other logins.

I would love to try it but it requires Facebook.

The app sort of pointless without the ability to jack into your social graph. Forcing everyone through Facebook is the fastest way to get this data into the app, for the user and the developer.

9 out of 10 times the data you think the developer needs for the app is probably unnecessary for the app.

another facebook-only login... seriously guys, enough of this.

It would be nice except google plus already auto uploads? But, it only dumps them into one album. This would still be good for Facebook users though...

Isn't the G+ auto-upload thing only available on Android?

Love it. We worked on Hipster's iOS App (Also did some work for Path too) and was wondering how yet another photo sharing app could survive. For me, the killer feature is being able to batch upload the pictures. Love the intuitive UI.

The reason I haven't uploaded the majority of those photos... is because I don't want them online. If I want to mass edit/transfer in bulk, I'll plug my phone in and transfer them to my computer.

I'm like that too, but the occasional transferring does require a lot of steps: I (1) dig out my phone cable, (2) plug it in, (3) wait for my phone to sync while waiting for iPhoto to launch, (4) wait for the photos to import, (5) export the photos, (6) open Facebook and find the spot for uploading an album, (7) wait for Facebook's latest iteration of their bulk-uploading widget to load, (8) and then upload the photos. (I know I could theoretically use wireless sync and iCloud to cut a couple steps, but user inertia is a powerful force.)

I don't mind my process because I want my photos backed up in iPhoto anyway, and I find it useful to rearrange the photos once they're on Facebook, etc., but I can see Batch being pleasant for other people who upload lots of event photos and would prefer a simpler process.

> I'm like that too, but the occasional transferring does require a lot of steps: I (1) dig out my phone cable, (2) plug it in, (3) wait for my phone to sync while waiting for iPhoto to launch, (4) wait for the photos to import

None of this is true any more with Photostream.

While in Corsica last week, photos shot with my iPhone showed up on my iPad, simply by having logged into hotel WiFi. Upon return to the US, I found them also already available to iPhoto and Aperture.

You have to give credit where credit is due. This app is extremely well done. Looks like they have some kinks to work out, but I expect it to be great. And very useful.

I swear thats exactly what the first posterous app did?!

I have no interest in actually using this, but WOW is it a beautifully done app. I'm extremely envious.

Why do they need to know my location to load my photos?

When programmatically accessing the photo library assets, the app can read the location data embedded in the photos. The app can alternatively use iOS's standard image picker dialog without asking for location permission, but the standard image picker dialog can't be customized.

That's standard in iOS apps...

Is it something developers choose to request because they can, or is it because the previously saved photos may already have geocoded data in them, so the app requires that permission to access the files already stored on the device?

The latter. I actually really want Apple to provide an option to request access to the photos without location, and remove the location data when reading in the photo metadata. But they don't — yet, at least.

(Disclaimer: I worked on Batch as an intern this summer, but I don't speak for them.)

If you want to access photo files with meta data and/or implement your own photo picking UI, then you need location access permission. If you use Apple provided photo picker (with has it's limitations) and you just want to get picture without meta data in the file, you don't need location access permission.

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