Divvyshot (YC W09) launches free iPhone App | Hacker News Reader

Divvyshot (YC W09) launches free iPhone App

blog.divvyshot.com

73 pointssimanyay36 comments

why do developers think the shake thing is useful or fun? seriously, it looks ridiculous when you're trying to do it in public. you look like you're pissed off at your phone and trying to get it to work by shaking it.

just get rid of the gimmick and make a button initiate the action.

We considered a button but ended up going against it. It doesn't scale - the button doesn't give us enough data. People don't time their presses well enough and if the app becomes successful we'll have a hard time telling apart presses that occur close to each other (both in time and space).

We've also considered a 4 digit pin but that confused users. It turns out that users intuitively understand the shake UX to transfer the contents from one phone to another.

Not to be argumentative but doesn't shaking present the same scaling problems? You can only stack so many iPhones before it becomes dangerous to shake them (for me shaking one is enough!). Why not put a button with a certain timeout, surely users can hit the button within 5 seconds of each other.

why would it be dangerous to shake a phone? it's all solid state materials, it shouldn't cause damage from shaking your phone unless you throw it.

I was joking about shaking one, but stacking two and shaking makes me uneasy because I am paranoid about scratches. And yea, throwing or more simply dropping is a slight concern.

We're not talking about scaling by syncing more than 2 devices simultaneously. We're talking about scaling our user base.

The problem is that we can only expect GPS to be accurate to 1-2km and the phone clocks are often off by 1+ seconds. This makes it difficult in metropolitan areas when multiple transfers can occur simultaneously within a 1-2km radius.

Ah, I misunderstood the mechanism, I thought it transferred over wifi, sorry.

I think the accelerometer data is very useful to detect devices.

Bumping the phones against each other creates a certain motion signature you can use to identify the pair of phones in the transaction.

Isn't this a way to draw attention to the device/app -- a form of marketing in public?

It does look cool, IMHO. I think it would especially appeal (at least in terms of novelty) to non-techies who aren't familiar with the concept of bumping.

just shake it!

What happens when you want to share but you aren't with that person?

For me the vast majority of the times I'm sharing it's with someone that physically isn't with me. Maybe I'm just a special case.

There's an option to send somebody an email with a link, or you can do twitter, flickr, or facebook.

The website is actually more powerful for long-distance transfers. For example, the recipient can download all the hi-res photos as a zip file.

If you're not in person, just use the app email him a link to the event.

wow -- finally a photo sharing app that makes sense and that's easy to use... jesus christ it was about time. i'd say it was worth the wait though because these these guys nailed it. i just shook pictures to a few friends in the office... worked perfectly but they should really offer a disclaimer about not being responsible for carpal tunnel (i'm feeling a little stiffness). regardless, job well done team divvyshot!

The shake-and-share ability looks great. Let's hope that catches on, as that would make photo sharing really easy (and fun).

Secret Bump API?

I can't quite put my finger on it, but the voice in the video sorta bugs me. It has that infomercial-ist tone which leaves me with the impression that the product is worse than it seems.

We noticed that too. We were even thinking we could end the video with something like this: http://www.realmofprosperity.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/...

Oh well, you can't get everything right.

hah. yah. I've never produced a video like this and I'm sure it's harder to pull off so it makes the viewer feel like you are completely genuine. I wonder if there is a service that sells voice-overs? Getting the Apple commercial guy would be sweet.

Absolutely right. It would be much better if it sounded a lot more "personal" as opposed to some salesman telling us what's cool.

Are you planning to promote this outside of divyshot.com? Are you running ads?

I built an app for Hacker News that just went live on the App Store this morning, but my announcement completely flopped on HN. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=986329) I mostly built it for myself, but figured that a few folks here would find it useful. What's the right sort of marketing for iPhone apps?

It might have gotten more votes if you had provided a link to a page with screenshots and a description of the app. I use Linux and therefore a link directly to iTunes doesn't do much for me.

Thanks. I'll try that.

What about a short movie vs. screenshots?

I've always liked the concept behind divvyshot. However, I wonder how well it is faring considering that the juggernaut - Facebook photos - has become one of the de facto places for folks to upload photos.

Competition validates the market exists.

its a no brainer that the market exists. My question was geared more towards how will they compete against FB photos, which has grown like a weed.

There's an opportunity in mobile because many photos are taken on the phone and (arguably) it's easier to transfer photos from your computer to your phone than your computer to Facebook because USB is faster than broadband.

People want to share photos w/ their friends. Facebook is the easiest way; that doesn't mean it always will be.

>> Facebook is the easiest way; that doesn't mean it always will be

totally agree. But at least, as of now, FB has a very strong network effect going for it. That's going to be hard to beat. Do I think FB is the end-all ? Nope - I'm pretty sure something disruptive will come along and challenge FB's domination.

I hate that the "reply" button vanishes so soon.

Yes, of course that's right. The 1-to-N factor and ease of tagging are why Facebook grew so much faster than all the other photo-sharing services.

I guess my point was that DivvyShot is in a different part of the pipeline (closer to the camera) than Facebook, so that presents new opportunities.

Wooo Sam! Nice to see it's finally released!!

I can share files with Bump also. Can you tell me what differentiates this?!

man the voice over style in the video was borderline late night infomercial.

How did you make this awesome demo video?

I would love if you spilled the beans...

* Writing the script * Getting someone to shoot/edit it * Lighting * Getting someone to read it etc.

I have to do something similar soon [ non iPhone, ;)] and I am truly in awe.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com