Everybody knows about the online photo sharing services like Photobucket. But one you may not know too much about is a site called Pahnfare. Although being relativley unknown, Phanfare is a surprisingly good site and their new iPhone app is putting them back in the limelight. This app, nicknamed Photon, could quite possibly be the best iPhone photo sharing app on the market. This is mainly due to Phanfares use of cloud storage and online gallery features which is integrated nicely into the iPhone, some new features added to the iPhone's own camera features, and the wonderful fact that this helpful app is totally free.
With the Phanfare app and plugins for your desktop, you can upload all your pictures to the service. You can get a free account with 1GB of space, or for a $55 a year account you can get unlimited accounts.
The interface for Photon is very similar to that of Apple's own photo app but comes with a few important changes. For example, you can access all your pictures from the phone and the built-in camera app comes with a picture stabalizer and a self timer. You also get the traditional greyscale, sepia, or auto scale features for your pics as well as the option to crop or add captions to your photos. A very cool feature is the ability to add music to your slideshows, though you can only do this through the site itslef.
The app caches your photos on the phone which allows you to run most of Photons features offline. Plus, you also get the option to choose how much disk space on your iPhone you want to dedicate to the cache so you only use what you want to use. The only downside, for now, is the fact that you do not have the ability to zooom in on your photos, though luckily Phanfare CEO Andrew Erlichson says that this feature will be added in the next version of the app due to apperar some time in the next 4 weeks.
Overall it appears that Phanfare's Photon is the best iPhone picture sharing app out right now for the iPhone. Its main focus is to give you easy access to all of your photos while also giving you the ability to share ttem with your friends. This is one iPhone app that will surley please anybody who uses it.
Zach, thanks for the very positive Photon review. We're actively working to make the app even better. It's also a great tool for iPod Touch users to show off all of their photos, although since the Touch doesn't have a camera, you can't take pictures with it.
ReplyDelete>>A very cool feature is the ability to add music to your slideshows, though you can only do this through the site itslef. <<
Actually, you can assign any track in your collection to an album from within Phanfare Photon. Photon includes several stock tracks. It's only if you want to add your own music that you have to do so from your computer on the Phanfare web site. But once music is added, it's available on Photon to be assigned to your albums.
Ben Gottesman
Phanfare