Nice that all of your friends are always in the same room with you.

It leaves you in control of the "show". If you have a series of pictures, for example, you pick when to move to the next photo, and can narrate as you do. You don't have to think about them flipping beyond the photos you wanted to share. They don't have to figure out how to work your phone.

It's certainly easier to pass around a phone, of course, but I can see the flaws.

This is a place where NFC would really be a step up though. Tap-to-share-screen, instead of having to find contacts and numbers and sending texts.

I agree. Whoever thought this was going to end up being less troublesome than passing a phone around (which is, admittedly, awkward) hasn't thought through the scenarios. There's no way a bunch of people at "dinner with friends" are all going to pull their phones out and start up a little photo-viewing LAN party.

I imagine it's to stop people from committing the social faux-pas whereby they're handed a phone, and they start swiping through pictures in the gallery (and possibly stumbling upon pictures the phone owner did not intend to be seen).

A lot of people don't like passing a phone around because in many cases the recipient, either out of force of habit or just snooping around, will keep scrolling through the rest of their photos.