Brief summary of iPhone Flickr apps

I use Flickr to store my photos. Now that I have an iPhone, I would like to use it as a mobile photo album as well as uploading photos taken from the camera. I don't want the added complexity of using iPhoto as a middleman, so I did a rough survey of iPhone Flickr apps.

Flickr 1.1.3 (free).

• Loads photos fast. Caching works well if you have already viewed a photo.


• View photos full screen and swipe to navigate.


• No zoom.


• If you take photos with the inbuilt Camera app and upload them sometime later, it doesn't set the map location and time taken to the original values.


• Uploaded photo file size seems larger than with Mobile Fotos or syncing with iPhoto.

Darkslide 1.6.2 (free add-supported version)

• Slow load times (even for previously viewed photos).


• No swipe to nagivate photos.


• No zoom.

Flickit 2.0 (free)

• Only does uploading. The Pro app ($5.99) is a full client.


• If you take photos with the inbuilt camera app and upload them sometime later, it doesn't set the map location and time taken to original values. Found an explanation from the developer.


• Compresses photos significantly. I could only see small differences compared with the same photo uploaded via alternative means. Developer was helpful when I asked about this.

Mobile Fotos ($5.99)

• Upload correctly sets the map location and time taken to the original values for photos taken with the inbuilt Camera app.


• View photos full screen, swipe to navigate and pinch to zoom.


• Slideshow.


• Uploaded photos have washed out colours.


• Can't select from your tags when uploading, need to type in each time.


• Had one case where photos were shown as a blank screen. Cleared cache and problem was resolved.


• Developer was responsive when I asked questions.

Reflections ($5.99) and Photo Wallet: Flickr ($3.99) both look interesting in their own right, but neither offer zoom. The developer of Photo Wallet answered my question via twitter quickly to.

In summary, none of the Apps I tried are ideal for uploading to Flickr. This leaves me importing into iPhoto and uploading via the standard web uploader.* Mobile Fotos has the best viewing experience and I would also use it for uploading if the colours and tagging were fixed.

* The iPhone saves GPS information into the EXIF data. I had to set the "Import EXIF location data" privacy setting for the Flickr map location to be set. The privacy implications of this need further investigation.