SmugMug and iPhone App

Jamoke · July 8, 2008

I started looking at coding it myself, but realized how daunting of a task it would be. Something that I would just about kill for (at $1.99, or $2.99) would be an iPhone App with Upload capabilities to Smugmug. With the advent of Geotagging-3G-iPhone I'll be posting a bit more from the iPhone, and I think it would be really nice to have a native app to post without a computer.

For those adventurous enough to delv deeper, a wish of mine would be an application with full support for Smugmug. It could include upload capabilities as well as the functionality similar to other 3rd party applications for Smugmug. Rather than re-coding the HTML for an iPhone login, it could be cool to have an app that can organize galleries, add comments to pictures prior to upload, move pictures between galleries, access pricing info, etc. etc. There are a couple (Non smugmug) developers on Dgrin who have PC apps / Mac apps.... Let's see an iPhone App.

I'll keep pluggin away at mine if nobody else is going to, but Mine would probably take me a year + before I'd be happy with it. If somebody else has something in the works, let us know, and we'll all buy a copy.

Wrongway · July 10, 2008

Smugmug and iPhone
The new apps store on iTunes is due to be opened anytme now as a lot will probably know. There are lots of postings on the macrumors site pertaining to it. I came across this interesting page that is now available on the apps store.

http://att.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=123097&d=1215682236

Smugshot......Sounds interesting

Pupator · July 10, 2008

Application Description
SmugShot adds photos as you shoot them to your SmugMug galleries. They're fully geotagged so your fans can see your beautiful self on maps. SmugMug is a popular photo and video-sharing site with gorgeous online galleries.

FEATURES:
-Automatically geotags your photos using the iPhone's ability to locate itself.
- Automatically sends your photos to gorgeous online galleries
- Lets you see where your shots were waken by placing them on Google Maps

Size: 0.2MB
Price: Free

Jamoke · July 10, 2008

Whoa - Thanks
So I guess I didn't realize that developers had an NDA, and that Smugmug has already put one together that does most of what I articulated... Thanks Smugmug! - I guess I just needed more patience.

SmugShot at the App Store - Sweet!!!

Pupator · July 10, 2008

Yep - http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=99316

devbobo · July 10, 2008

Jamoke wrote:

So I guess I didn't realize that developers had an NDA

...

Pupator · July 10, 2008

devbobo wrote:

...

And shhhh....you can get the iPhone 2.0 firmware a bit early by going here: http://www.macrumors.com/2008/07/10/iphone-2-0-firmware-5a347-available-early/

devbobo · July 10, 2008

Pupator wrote:

And shhhh....you can get the iPhone 2.0 firmware a bit early by going here: http://www.macrumors.com/2008/07/10/iphone-2-0-firmware-5a347-available-early/

i'm addicted to Super Monkey Ball already

timnosenzo · July 10, 2008

I was very happy to see a SmugMug app in the App store this morning, can't wait to try it out!

Pupator · July 10, 2008

I got to thinking, if I were SmugMug I'd have a really cool page with all the details about this iPhone app.

http://www.smugmug.com/iphone/smugshot/

That must be where it is!

devbobo · July 10, 2008

there is also a box on the SmugMug homepage.

Pupator · July 10, 2008

Took my first picture with SmugShot sitting at my PC.

Here ya go: http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/5376217_qBg25/1/329293218_E3TRh#329293218_E3TRh

I also gave a brief review of SmugShot for another forum I frequent: http://forum.brighthand.com/showpost.php?p=1695127&postcount=2

colourbox · July 10, 2008

I don't have an iPhone yet, but I was just reading this review of Exposure, the Flickr app for the iPhone, and my eyes got wide reading this:

However the most fascinating feature of Exposure by far is using the iPhone’s built in location service to browse pictures that were taken near your current location. One the one hand it’s kind of eerie—on the other, it’s indescribably futuristic...

:wow

Will we be able to browse Smugmug this way?

onethumb · July 10, 2008

colourbox wrote:

I don't have an iPhone yet, but I was just reading this review of Exposure, the Flickr app for the iPhone, and my eyes got wide reading this:

:wow

Will we be able to browse Smugmug this way?

You've been able to browse SmugMug this way for years.

http://maps.smugmug.com/

colourbox · July 10, 2008

I know how SmugMaps works, I use it on many galleries. It's one of my favorite SmugMug features!

But the way I interpret the Flickr feature is that it will automatically bring you the photos that are near where you are right now, meaning the default set seen on the iPhone will be different depending on whether you are standing in San Francisco or Paris, and moreover, on which particular block in Paris. I don't believe SmugMaps will do that on the iPhone, but since I don't have one, feel free to correct me...

jptexas · July 10, 2008

smugshot - problems
Hello,

Quite an exciting day for iphone owners.
Smugshot was the first app I downloaded, so I ve got some feedback, and unfortunately some problems...

- It seems that the uploading stops if the phone goes on sleep mode, which for most people it does way before the picture is uploaded, especially on 2G iphones
- When I turn the phone back on, the app is closed and my pic was not uploaded
- If go back to the app, the upload has to restart from scratch

That makes it virtually impossible to upload a picture, without monitoring the upload for ~10 minutes and make sure the phone stays on.

This remains promising for a first version, I assume you plan on having a smugmug album browsing capabilities in future releases?

Thank You

JP

Sheaf · July 10, 2008

jptexas wrote:

Hello,

Quite an exciting day for iphone owners.
Smugshot was the first app I downloaded, so I ve got some feedback, and unfortunately some problems...

- It seems that the uploading stops if the phone goes on sleep mode, which for most people it does way before the picture is uploaded, especially on 2G iphones
- When I turn the phone back on, the app is closed and my pic was not uploaded
- If go back to the app, the upload has to restart from scratch

That makes it virtually impossible to upload a picture, without monitoring the upload for ~10 minutes and make sure the phone stays on.

This remains promising for a first version, I assume you plan on having a smugmug album browsing capabilities in future releases?

Thank You

JP

Thanks for the feedback JP.

It shouldn't go to sleep mode while actively uploading. If it does, that's a bug and we'll hopefully find it and fix it soon.

As far as the browsing goes, are you talking about browsing photos and such? Because we've had that for a quite a while through Safari. http://www.smugmug.com/iphone or nickname.smugmug.com/iphone

jptexas · July 10, 2008

In the general options of the iphone, I have 'auto-lock' set to 2 minutes.
Whether or not I upload a picture, it does 'turn off' after 2 minutes.

Also, could it be possible to have a 'resume' option and not restart downloading from scratch every time there is a problem, or if we just want to pause the uploading? ~5-10 min to upload a pic is long, and we may want to use another app, and come back and resume the upload.

I had actually forgotten about the nice interface you have for mobile safari. I guess I would have liked some kind of integration with smugshot, to have everything in one place, but current solution works.

Andy · July 11, 2008

Gooooooooooooood morning from #12 in line at the ATT Store here in my town

Pupator · July 11, 2008

The new screenshot feature is very awesome when combined with SmugShot.

Workflow:
1) Hold home button and tap sleep/wake
2) Open SmugShot
3) Click on "albums" and find the screenshot I just took
4) Hit upload.

Bam. Screenshot online in about 10 seconds.

Just look at all this application goodness....

AJPhoto · July 12, 2008

ditto on jptexas's experience with sleep mode problem and resume feature request.

This will be a very useful app.

Wrongway · July 13, 2008

I don't think there is a Mugshot section in the forum yet so I will camp onto this one for now if thats ok :tiptoe

When I go to the Mugshop app on my iPhone I get the login screen flash up with my login details ready filled in (nice touch). It then brings up an option button Change Upload Albums. However this option is only there for a fraction of a second and then carries on to the Take Picture screen. I am hoping this would give a choice as to where the pictures taken are stored, preferably in Camera Roll. At the moment it seems they are lost when taken and uploaded as they dont appear in any album. Only online. Another possible addon to the application would be to choose which album on my SmugMug site the upload can go to.

Andy · July 13, 2008

Wrongway wrote:

I don't think there is a Mugshot section in the forum yet so I will camp onto this one for now if thats ok :tiptoe

When I go to the Mugshop app on my iPhone I get the login screen flash up with my login details ready filled in (nice touch). It then brings up an option button Change Upload Albums. However this option is only there for a fraction of a second and then carries on to the Take Picture screen. I am hoping this would give a choice as to where the pictures taken are stored, preferably in Camera Roll. At the moment it seems they are lost when taken and uploaded as they dont appear in any album. Only online. Another possible addon to the application would be to choose which album on my SmugMug site the upload can go to.

Thanks for posting, we'll get back to you shortly on this!

Wrongway · July 13, 2008

I might have worked it out. I didnt realise there was a settings icon at the bottom of the iPhones setting menu. There is a save on phone button. As well as default caption and keywords settings. It might be worth mentioning it in the writeup somewhere for thickies like me.

rainforest1155 · July 13, 2008

Pupator wrote:

The new screenshot feature is very awesome when combined with SmugShot.

Thanks for posting that! It's a very cool feature and as a new iPhone user I will for sure appreciate it.

Sebastian

asd · July 13, 2008

rainforest1155 wrote:

Thanks for posting that! It's a very cool feature and as a new iPhone user I will for sure appreciate it.

Sebastian

This was my first app to install on my brand new iphone. It's great! And I noticed that taking pictures within the app (vs shooting with the Camera app and then only using SmugShot to find them in the roll and upload them) results in bigger pictures online--1600x1200 vs 640x480. I'm guessing the app isn't able to get the full size images from the photo roll?

The GPS is a bit wonky. It seems to take awhile to zero in. I shot 4 shots in a row, without moving, in a shop and the first 2 got attributed to the same spot 50 feet away in the street and the second 2 got attributed to about where I was in the store. I don't know if it helps the GPS zero in to just leave smugshots open for awhile before taking the first shot.

It would be nice if I could remove an image from the upload queue or send it to the end of the queue. Walking around SF yesterday when I got into some slow areas I didn't care as much about some images getting up online.

Overall, this is a sweet app and I really appreciate it! The iPhone's camera is nothing too special, but it sure is cool to be able to take a picture and have it online and geotagged so quickly.

Wrongway · July 13, 2008

asd wrote:

This was my first app to install on my brand new iphone. It's great! And I noticed that taking pictures within the app (vs shooting with the Camera app and then only using SmugShot to find them in the roll and upload them) results in bigger pictures online--1600x1200 vs 640x480. I'm guessing the app isn't able to get the full size images from the photo roll?

The GPS is a bit wonky. It seems to take awhile to zero in. I shot 4 shots in a row, without moving, in a shop and the first 2 got attributed to the same spot 50 feet away in the street and the second 2 got attributed to about where I was in the store. I don't know if it helps the GPS zero in to just leave smugshots open for awhile before taking the first shot.

It would be nice if I could remove an image from the upload queue or send it to the end of the queue. Walking around SF yesterday when I got into some slow areas I didn't care as much about some images getting up online.

Overall, this is a sweet app and I really appreciate it! The iPhone's camera is nothing too special, but it sure is cool to be able to take a picture and have it online and geotagged so quickly.

I must admit I hadnt noticed that. The images uploaded from the Camera Roll do in fact appear as 640 x 480 and not the native 1600 x 1200.

I think I understand why you got bad GPS coverage if you were in a shop. You need a good line of sight signal to the satellites to get an accurate fix. I believe the GPS receiver get a helping hand in the iPhone by using the phones cell area to narrow the position down first. Most GPS receivers dont have that luxury and take a little longer to get the initial fix.

I was going to suggest taking the pictures direct to the camera roll and uploading in the order you want and when you want. But as you point out, 640 x 480 is a bit bad.

Sheaf · July 13, 2008

asd wrote:

I'm guessing the app isn't able to get the full size images from the photo roll?

Yeah, we were bummed out when we noticed it while developing the app. It's a limitation by Apple and we hope it is just a bug.

Sheaf · July 14, 2008

asd wrote:

It would be nice if I could remove an image from the upload queue or send it to the end of the queue.

You can delete from the queue actually. In the queue, do a flick gesture over the right side of the queue item and it will give you the option to delete it. We will probably make that choice more obvious at some point.

asd · July 15, 2008

Sheaf wrote:

You can delete from the queue actually. In the queue, do a flick gesture over the right side of the queue item and it will give you the option to delete it. We will probably make that choice more obvious at some point.

Cool, I just tried it out. I thought that arrow on the right was to indicate you can go back to preview by clicking; I didn't even think to swipe across it. Thanks for the tip!

And, wrongway, you're right that being outside is the best way for a good and quick lock...but the iPhone GPS is still inaccurate. Walking around outside at lunch yesterday and while out driving today, all of the shots were off by at least 50 feet. Good to know that placing by hand via Google Earth+Picasa or Smugmug is still more accurate. I'll try leaving the app open for longer periods of time (without letting the phone lock itself) to see just how long it takes for it to get a really good fix out in the open.

frank551 · July 15, 2008

Some problems?
Installed the app, and it works great(ish). It changes back to the SmugShots gallery, but someone already submitted a bug report for that here on the bug thread.

But the geotagging seems to not be working. It places a marker on the around the world map, but with no preview, and when I click it, it takes me to my smug maps page, and says zero images. Maybe it's a setting I have wrong somewhere?

Also, it seems like all the exif data is being stripped off it? Also a setting I'm not seeing?

Thanks!

SmugMug and iPhone App

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