Trumblog

I use the Flickr BlackBerry application just about every day to support my Boston Moment project. It’s a really useful tool for uploading photos from your BlackBerry to your Flickr photostream and is critical for anyone with a Flickr account who occasionally adds pictures taken from their BlackBerry.

Uploading images with the application is very easy.  You can use the Upload Photo button in the Flickr application or it also  integrates with the BlackBerry camera so that you can select “Send To Flickr” from the menu.  In either case you browse for the image that you want to upload and then get started adding data about it.  You can set its title, place it in a photoset from your Flickr account, set the location of the image, select image privacy settings, resize the image, write a description, add tags and check spelling.  A click of the button uploads the image and you are done.

Naturally a Flickr account is needed to upload images to Flickr and the application does a nice job of integrating with your account by maintaining your list of sets and allowing you to place uploaded images into them therefore saving you from having to take care of data management online later.  You can also check your monthly account statistics (storage used and remaining and photosets created, not views or favorites).

I’ve run into a issues a few times when uploading images, getting errors and communication issues, but I have no way of knowing if this is the fault of the application, Flickr’s servers or AT&T’s less than stellar service.  Also while it’s great for me that the photoset, description and tags from the previous image are maintained when I upload the next one, for a user who uploads images infrequently or of a diverse subjects I can imagine all of the deleting that needs to be done could become tiresome.  My preset locations also got merged and now all point to the same latitude and longitude and there is no way to change or delete them.

Some additions that I would like to see are adding FlickrMail messages to your activity list and being able to send and respond,  management of photos already uploaded to Flickr, downloading from Flickr, view counts, and viewing groups and photos from your contacts.  A nice feature that the application offers and I would like to see standard across more apps is the “Check for upgrade now” menu item.  Being able to quickly find updates to your favorite applications ensures that you always have the latest features and bug fixes and thus an optimal application experience.  App makers take notice.

The Flickr application for the BlackBerry gives you the basic set of features you need for uploading images to your Flickr account and for the most part does that well, but it doesn’t go above and beyond that nor does it provide the features that move you from just using the app as a tool to an app that truly engages you with the Flickr network.

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