Yahoo gives Flickr complete overhaul with new design, HD video and image search
With its release of the revamped Flickr 3.0 iOS app on Thursday, Yahoo continues its push to bolster the photo capture, storage and sharing service by adding features already on competing apps like Instagram.
The most apparent change to Flickr in version 3.0 is the redesigned UI, which now displays photos in an easy to navigate grid instead of the previous timeline-style design. With the new layout, scrolling is much smoother and users can easily chew through hundreds of images in short order.
As with many other recent iOS app updates, Flickr now sports a "flat" aesthetic with heavy use of transparencies, borderless buttons and layered graphical effects. For example, the app's live filters, which can be previewed before and after taking a picture, now show up on floating cards to add to the UI's depth.
Version 3.0 also lets users capture up to 30 second's worth of high-definition video, which can be edited using Flickr's impressive suite of adjustment tools like exposure, contrast and color levels, among others. The aforementioned live filters may also be applied to video recordings.
Yahoo's improvements on the backend are worth noting, especially new object-recognition capabilities in photo search. This feature adds to the usual time, date, location search filters seen in most other photo aggregation and sharing apps.
Since last year, users of the service can upload 1TB of photos and video to Yahoo's servers for access via the Flickr iOS app or Web client. The Auto Sync feature has been extended to include HD video with the the latest release.
Flickr version 3.0 is a free 41.2MB download from the App Store.
The most apparent change to Flickr in version 3.0 is the redesigned UI, which now displays photos in an easy to navigate grid instead of the previous timeline-style design. With the new layout, scrolling is much smoother and users can easily chew through hundreds of images in short order.
As with many other recent iOS app updates, Flickr now sports a "flat" aesthetic with heavy use of transparencies, borderless buttons and layered graphical effects. For example, the app's live filters, which can be previewed before and after taking a picture, now show up on floating cards to add to the UI's depth.
Version 3.0 also lets users capture up to 30 second's worth of high-definition video, which can be edited using Flickr's impressive suite of adjustment tools like exposure, contrast and color levels, among others. The aforementioned live filters may also be applied to video recordings.
Yahoo's improvements on the backend are worth noting, especially new object-recognition capabilities in photo search. This feature adds to the usual time, date, location search filters seen in most other photo aggregation and sharing apps.
Since last year, users of the service can upload 1TB of photos and video to Yahoo's servers for access via the Flickr iOS app or Web client. The Auto Sync feature has been extended to include HD video with the the latest release.
Flickr version 3.0 is a free 41.2MB download from the App Store.
Comments
Despite my earlier post saying that Yahoo was pretty good at iOS apps, this update is not good at all. Less usable, more confusing...and they STILL have no Flickr for iPad. Come on, folks!
I have never used Flickr before but I have had a Yahoo account forever. I checked out the Flickr website and I like the new offer they have on a hard bound photo book for $10. I'm definitely going to take them up on that.
https://www.flickr.com/create/
BTW I noticed that the upload page says that Safari is not compatible with all of their upload features. I think they need to fix that one way or another or else Apple is definitely not going to work with them on future partnerships ie the rumored search in iOS proposal.
LOL, the Flickr app on an iPad sports a watermelon icon.
Ten dollars is pretty good. iPhoto charges $29.99 for a twenty page book.
Update:
OK, I see it is ten dollars for ten days as a promotion. Good deal, but the regular price is $34.95, which is higher than Apple charges.
If Apple bought Yahoo, I would not be upset. Google would sh$t it's pants
Other than the price, it could be a nice way for Apple to unleash a full frontal attack on Google's core business.
I agree.
Regarding the book creation, I can't get over how people are looking at stuff like this as new, how long has Apple had almost the same features in iPhoto and Aperture ... I forget now but it seems like a decade.
Yeah, I think Shutterfly had photo books circa 2001. iPhoto debuted in 2002, maybe it got photo books a year or two later.
It's a bit like marveling that your new car has satellite radio or GPS navigation.
I think Apple is grooming Yahoo! into something they can buy in the next several years, then BAM! Perfect merger.
Even longer:
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/01/07Apple-Introduces-iPhoto.html
Apple is going to buy Yahoo. Ever since Yahoo came out with that Weather app with the Jony Ive design treatment all over it, it's been a gut feeling.
I think Apple is grooming Yahoo! into something they can buy in the next several years, then BAM! Perfect merger.
Yes; and when you think of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!, Yahoo! have always been the most neutral and non-aggressive of those three.
I don't see too many downsides.
Scary how time flies!
Over and over Apple has offered things no one took notice of and years later it becomes a big deal. Remember QuickTime VR? I made my wife a load of really neat QTVR tours of high end properties she had for sale here in Florida but had to give up as back then everyone used PCs and Windows XP with IE and it wouldn't run. Two decades later Real Estate sites were filled with flash based VR, simply rotating 360 views with no portals between scenes as QTVR had.
1) Ha! It is, and yet tech cannot move forward fast enough for my taste.
2) That was sad, wasn't it? You could've tried to do it in Windows, but that would have its own shortcomings:
Apple is going to buy Yahoo. Ever since Yahoo came out with that Weather app with the Jony Ive design treatment all over it, it's been a gut feeling.
I think Apple is grooming Yahoo! into something they can buy in the next several years, then BAM! Perfect merger.
I hope not, what will the merger of the two companies become, some new type of company? Apple is a hardware company and they should focus on that, if they are spread too thin with a big merger it would not be good.
They use Flash to perform the upload. They need to revamp their site and stop using Flash, IMHO.
It's a bit of a bait and switch, as the shipping price is $13. So, I spent all this time making a book I thought I would get for $10, and they want to charge me $25 on check out.
I also spent half an hour trying to log into the stupid app with the correct password, and it's consistently telling me my account is locked. Something is really wrong on Yahoo's server end, as they can't even text a confirmation code over five minutes after the fact. I'll give them the fact that their design style has been nice of late, but they need to get their operations and organization restructured. Navigating through the different ways to organize albums in Flickr is confusing and annoying.
Their website used to be fantastic and then they went and changed it into a borderless, infinite scrolling, disaster.
Then again, why should I care? After the political BS I suffered there a few years back, at the hands of their Napoleon complex employees and one crazy user, I have zero desire to use the site for much of anything ever again. If you're doing random family snapshots, have fun. If you're an artist, don't rely on the site, nor the policies being treated consistently from user to user.