Show HN: Photo Picker+, New Library Improves Native Photo Picker (iOS+Android) | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Photo Picker+, New Library Improves Native Photo Picker (iOS+Android)

picture.io

121 pointsranvir33 comments

On the site itself, you need some words for those "Supported services" icons. I know the first is Facebook; the second I think is Flickr; the third is Picasa; I have no clue what #4 is.

I don't know, seemed obvious to me. The fourth is Instagram.

You have no clue what "instagram" is ?

"It’s a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures." - http://instagr.am/ Think twitter but with pictures.

In support of original post, I did not know what it was either. A simple tooltip or hover could have solved. Even if it was a title tag filled out for the image. Just saying that not everyone recognizes that icon

We'll definitely try and add a hint here - need to adjust some html and css up :)

Couple questions: How are you making money off this (that is, will you be making money off my users)? Obviously you've put a lot of work into it, and it looks really great.

Also, can you select multiple images at once? Can you select video as well?

Hi there. I'm one of the co-founders of Chute. We're not planning on making money off of this service, per se. We are planning on making money at some point from use of the broader Chute API as well as several other products we're launching, which we hope people will begin to discover with Photo Picker+. Photo Picker+ is something we built as part of the overall (forthcoming) product offering, but we thought it would be useful on its own so we released it first as a separate library.

The Chute API will always have a free tier as well.

You can't yet select multiple images or video, but they're both on the roadmap. Thanks a lot.

That makes sense. Thanks so much for replying, looks like a great service!

As an app developer, I'd love to not write custom code for each photo sharing service. This seems to require using the chute hosted platform, though. Can the library be used without the service?

Agreed. Love the idea but having another external dependency is worrying. I'd rather something akin to OmniAuth

Frank, I definitely understand your concern.

I think the primary challenge with a pure native code solution is that each library works a slightly different way and not all will make it possible to trap the callback directly.

As these APIs change and evolve, we'll be constantly monitoring them and adjusting server side - as opposed to having to change your mobile client code.

Looking forward, we're also planning to do a lot to help speed up this process and enhance it with other features and services.

I really love the idea of it and appreciate your effort that went into creating this SDK, however, forcing my users to hand over their FB/Instagram/Flickr/Picasa handles to a 3rd party I can't testify for is a no go for me. There also currently is no info to users that their data will be centrally stored by chute in the app GUI, I am no lawyer but after the recent privacy backlashes it might be a good idea to add a note regarding this. From my point of view, as things stand today with the current focus on privacy, such a feature would need to be completely device based or at least on the servers of the developer of the particular app itself. In another comment a little further down it was also hinted that the chute API might get a price tag at some point (with a free tier), these two things combined unfortunately make it unusable for me at this point.

Really love the idea though, hope we get to see a purely device based version of this at some point (by chute or somebody else).

We understand your concern. We're actually already working on the ability for each app to put its own credentials in for each service. We plan on releasing a lot of helpful components built on top of our API, and we understand that means earning people's trust over time. Hopefully you'll consider us again at some point in the future.

To your second point, I should probably clarify. If anyone begins by using Photo Picker+ we will grandfather them in and never charge for that use of the API. In the future there may be other paid components or features of the API that a developer may choose to add, but that will have no bearing on your use of PP+. Thanks a lot.

The copy reads: "Let your users upload photos in your app from any of their favorite photo services..."

Should that be _into_ your app?

If they're already in the app, what's the need for uploading?

Good point. Changed it to "select photos." Thanks.

This looks really great, thank you for sharing it. One question, do you think you'll eventually extend the API to allow for uploading to these services as well?

Absolutely. That's already built into the Chute SDK, actually. We're still polishing the docs (we haven't formally launched the API yet), but the functionality is there. Feel free to email me directly if you'd like any help.

This looks fantastic! Integrating different services is usually such a pain. Been waiting for something like this for a long time.

It would be great if apps like instagram used this...I'd love to add filters to my existing facebook and flickr photos.

This is really neat. As a dev not having to keep updating my app for different apis is a real plus point.

This looks very useful.

Do you have a link to an app or apk where I could see it in action?

Adding an APK. Will update with a link in a few minute.

OK, added a sample APK file up here: https://github.com/chute/photo-picker-plus/blob/master/Andro...

THis is pretty neat. We've been waiting for a similar product for quite some time. Kudos

Does "any of their favorite photo services" mean it can pick from Media RSS?

Hi,

Great question. At the moment, that's not directly supported. We started with the top consumer-facing services but will be working to add new services and storage backends.

Search is something we're already working on.

Greg

Nice and useful concept executed beautifully.

as a developer I think this is awesome! It would be awesome if apps like instagram, Path used this

nice concept guyz and well executed too .. a smart and easy way to do things

ahhh... no longer do i need to integrate different sdks... and its free #yay

you guys just made cross service image integration Simple. Cool!

this looks great - i hope a lot of services adopt it

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