Finally mastered the Flickr iPhone App!

I downloaded the Flickr iPhone app around the same time as Adobe launched their Photoshop app. Having played around with both I'd come to the somewhat rushed conclusion that Flickr allowed multiple uploads whilst the Photoshop app allowed you to edit photos. Why I'm not a professional product reviewer I'll never know!


My experience of both apps pretty much stopped in its tracks after that. I'd no real use for them and the experience of using Flickr was still preferable from a laptop as opposed to the iPhone. However a random set of circumstances involving a new personal project (just bought a house) and a boring train journey from Liverpool to London yesterday has changed my perception somewhat. 


As many a novice to DIY will testify, speed dial 'home' on your mobile tends to be dusted off form it's University days of calling for money, laundry advice and how to poach an egg! I've found myself constantly on the phone to my Dad seeking advice for the more mature issues of sanding floorboards, using Polly Filler (incidentally this is a great advert that my Dad found!) and finding the right pipes to plumb the washing machine in.


I've also noticed that most of these calls are accompanied by the iphone photo! A picture really does paint a thousand words. I'd call, explain my problem then email over a couple of photos to illustrate my point. It seems to work well and the rates are cheap! All of which has culminated in a growing collection of photos on my iPhone that have a theme, a link and warrant being collated into something approaching a photo set, something the other random photos on there certainly don't. 

So, bored on the train, I decided to see what would be involved in uploading the floor renovating photos to Flickr. The results were pleasantly encouraging. You can add each photo to a set, give it a title and description and upload them as a batch instead of singularly (restriction of the Photoshop app). The T-Mobile WiFi on Virgin Trains is flaky at best so I was surprised at how well it coped with the task. The outcome was that I could relatively simply upload albums to Flickr from my phone whilst genuinely on the move. 


There were a couple of notable restrictions, however: you can't easily share the album from within the iPhone App and you can only email out one photo at a time. I'm such such basic functionality with be added in due course. 


So now I have a couple of sets on flickr, the old floor and the new floor albums which are the final output from an iphone enabled process. Documenting projects and experiences such as DIY using the iPhone camera and Flickr app is a great example of how the iphone technology can really underpin and support day to day activities in a way that is non intrusive and effective. That might sound a little deep, but I think it's important to establish reasons and use cases for technological advances rather than the pure innovation and technical development.