A few months ago Daily Booth CEO Brian Pokorny told me that most of his team was working on a second product. “What is it?” I asked, “A mobile photo sharing app?”
I was joking, because everyone and their mother seemed to launch a mobile photo sharing app in the last year or so, to the point that we groaned whenever we saw a new one.
“Yes. And it’s going to liberate the countless photos that everyone has stuck in their phones.”
“Ha ha. Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“No, you’re not serious.”
“Yes.”
“Hah.”
And so the conversation went. I didn’t believe him until he pulled out his iPhone and showed me an early internal version of Batch, his new mobile photo sharing app.
Batch is now in the iPhone app store.
And it is absolutely amazing.
Batch allows people to create albums, called “Batches,” with photos from an event or whatever. Yeah, not so exciting. But it lets you auto upload them as you take them from the app, and you can mass select photos already stuck on your iPhone as well.
That last sentence is the important one. We all have hundreds or thousands of photos on our phones that we’ve never bothered to upload to Facebook or Flickr. Batch makes it exceptionally easy to do that, dozens at a time.
You sign in via Facebook, so it already knows your friends. Tagging them into Batches is really easy as well. They’ve taken a lot of time with the interface and it’s both beautiful, fast and functional.
It’s the perfect app to add to my new iPhone (with Google Voice!). Android users will have to wait a bit to use it.
Photos can be kept private or shared with others. It’s amazing seeing notifications pop up in real time as new photos are added to a Batch while you’re still at an event.
There are some features I’d like to see them add to Batch soon. Multiple people can’t contribute to a single Batch, they have to create their own. So there will be multiple Batches at a single event when all your friends start using this.
I’d also like to have the ability to tag photos, not just batches. And I’d like to be able to download or bookmark individual photos as well. Right now you can only see a list of all Batches you’ve been tagged in. That’s great, but over time that list will become unmanageable.
But the app as it is today is absolutely great, and I’ll be using it constantly. As I tag friends at events they’ll get notifications on Facebook, so they can see the photos. This will spread fast.
As for Daily Booth – Pokorny says it’s still growing nicely (they just passed 1 million users), and the team will continue to develop both products. The company has raised about $7 million to date. It was originally part of Y Combinator.
Try this. You’ll love it.
Uncrunched 
This is pretty exceptional. Incredible that we still are wresting with issues of how to move our data…
Tackable is a better photo sharing app. With Q&A.
AND it’s in beta, so only getting better…
http://www.tackable.com
Downloaded Tackable. In 30 seconds, knew it was crap. The app is poorly written but that hardly matters. It’s a prison for photos to die where gamification is at its most depraved state.
Disagree? Prove me wrong. Don’t just plug apps for shit’s sake.
is the date captured on the photo with this app?
Incredible team so I think this will do well!
Does this mean that you got your Sprint iPhone???
Ha. Scrolled down and saw the iPhone post. Doh.
“Requires a Facebook account”
No thanks
Same, deleted…
same here!
No Facebook account (don’t have AND don’t WANT ANY) = No Batch
Sounds awesome, but I seriously hope they left out the overused/abused filters. (».«)
I am actually waiting for someone to provide “filters” on a group of photos – I guess a collage might be one – but perhaps something more original…
Facebook = fail. Tracks is a better app
So basically it works kind of like the Google+’s Photo/Video Instant Upload and batch uploading feature? Does it upload to Facebook or does it just tag FB friends and upload to a totally separate site?
Can anyone explain how this is different from Google+’s mobile uploading feature?
Serious entrepreneurs will put $7 m for a much better use. Lucky founders – the investors are trusting them with their money – I forgot.. it is not their own money.
Photos are done. Audio is the new wave. We are a new type of telephone and word processor, and this is what ? A new mobile photo sharing app. I find this precious and inane.
I’m also frustrated I can’t edit a comment on your blog, @arrington. I apologize and admit that I overdid it. It’s probably a nice app. I’m just Very Bored Of People’s Photo Apps.
The point is, my photos will be uploaded to where? Batch servers?! Facebook !?
Seriously, the only place right now that I trust my photoso to be is picasa photo albuns (Google) and DropBox storage (that’s synced with my computer and im able to get a link to public gallery).
If Apple’s iCloud can give us a link to submit to friends to view the gallery, that would be awsome.
Batch dont have the resources and filters of Instagram, nor the latest features of the actual iOS camera software.
Shame – would love the app, agree that I will never use it if it requires a Fbook account.
Doesn’t google+ app allows you to do this exact thing???
You mean photovine dot com? Google ripped off another program and now they decided to shut it down.
Yep, it’s brilliant too!
They do have a nice domain for an app compared to all the typos I have been seeing.
darn right. i figured out who Gern Blanstein is. hahaha. you are a funny man. 🙂
Why not, I only have 20 photo sharing apps.
Google Plus do the same! take photos or videos and G+ do the rest!
I’m not sure about G+ for iPhone, but my Android does it!
Looks very similar to: http://itunes.apple.com/za/app/tagged-photos-sync-for-facebook/id422595365?mt=8 (u right dave)
I don’t get it. An App for batch uploads? For all my pics I have on my iPhone? Why on earth should I want to upload them at all? The reason I have them on my phone and not on Instagram, Facebook and so on is of course that they were not worthy uploading the first time. Photos I want to have in the cloud or to be shared I do upload when I shot them. So what is this app for?
There is already a great batch photo uploader app for Facebook: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photoloader-for-facebook/id409349136?mt=8
Has no one heard of Liveshare?? I mean they even fill in the hole Arrington mentioned about single batches with multiple people uploading.
http://techstopmuse.blogspot.com/2011/04/color-is-next-twitter-try-livestream.html
name is Adnan.. not randomiser.. stupid gravatar automation.
Is a good article, thank. See more. Home theatre system http://hotshop108.com
> Batch allows people to create albums, called “Batches,” with photos from an event or whatever. Yeah, not so exciting. But it lets you auto upload them as you take them from the app, and you can mass select photos already stuck on your iPhone as well.
um, isnt that what the first version of the posterous app did?
Another VC-funded app which doesn’t save lives or prevent injuries, congratulations!
Buggy and junky – try Photorocket instead.
Michael Arrington’s record of picking startups + his diminshed draw for story material + gotta get -something- on the blog = “Yet Another Photo App Best (I embarrass even myself)”
how is this different from http://getchute.com/
After playing with this today, I have some feature ideas as well:
They need to add the ability to like or comment on a Batch, not just on a single photo. The number of people viewing my Batch or photo will be nice to have as well (from the app and the webpage shared on networks)
Sharing options needs to be finalized. Doesn’t work well when you enable the buttons, I found that I need to click share again after sharing. On twitter the share is a visible link. On Facebook it’s not. Should be fixed.
valid points. Also – allow me to choose one of the photos (or even pick the first one automatically) to show in the thumbnail in the Facebook link.
You had me until you said Facebook. Great idea in concept, but how do i then then get all my photos from Facebook? I can’t. So unless there is another service I could upload too. I will pass.
Google+ on my droid device is awesome. But shame on them too. Their Takeout service doesn’t yet support exporting pics and videos out.
just checked the app and it is truly great to play with (and share some photos casually). Great job on the design.
If you like the concept of sharing a number of photos but not too many – we are working on a service that allows to automatically choose 16pics from any online album (iPhone camera roll to come later on) and share them. we are launching soon – Check out our beta signup page at http://16pics.com/
Tackable is the best photo sharing app AND it’s still in beta, so only getting better.
No, I don’t work for them! But here’s their site: http://www.tackable.com
Sorry Stacey but I think Batch is the best photo sharing app in the market today. I have tried it myself and is far way much better than tackable. Thanks for this awesome app guys keep it up.
You can also try the Primadesk app. This app lets you search all your online accounts (Picasa, Flickr, Facebook, Photobucket etc.,). You can easily copy photos from one account to another or upload or download photos from online accounts to your device.
Try it out at http://www.primadesk.com
I agree with all that.
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I am a little bit confused. Google has just closed pool and you believe this similar app will success? I think instagram will add this feature to make public album and batch is over.
Android users have a great app called gpix. Gpix is a product of techtacle/ixlabs. Gpix allows batch uploading similar to batch. It supports Facebook, picasa , flickr and myspace . Gpix also has the auto upload feature. Gpix tagging feature is great. It detects faces automitically and provides an excellent GUI to tag friends. It also support comments , batch delete etc etc …. Great app..waiting for the app on iPhone….
I downloaded GPIX on my android phone.. it has amazing features. I can upload multiple photos to multiple sites like facebook, picasa, myspace and flickr in a single click. Thx for sharing.