Flickr gains background auto-uploading on iOS 7

Yahoo 2.30.1503 for iOS (Auto upload)

Yahoo yesterday issued a major revamp of its Mail service across the web and mobile platforms and today the Internet company pushed a new version of Flickr for iPhone.

In addition to a slightly refined user interface for iOS 7, folks who’ve upgrade their iDevices to iOS 7 can take advantage of a new Auto Upload feature that will “seamlessly upload and save your photos in full resolution.” Other tidbits include fixes for Google sign-in issues and a brand new Auto Straighten feature…

The Auto Upload feature takes the pain out of manual photo uploads by automatically saving your photos to Flickr, in the background and in full resolution. All images are uploaded privately until you’re ready to edit and share them.

“With Auto Upload, you can always find your smartphone photos wherever you want — within the Flickr app and on Flickr.com,” says Yahoo in a blog post.

This capability takes advantage of enhanced multitasking and improved background processing in iOS 7 and is akin to auto-upload functionality seen in Dropbox, Google+ Photos, Facebook and Everpix iOS apps, to name a few.

Auto-uploading works even if the app is closed before the upload in progress is finished. Furthermore, you can tell Flickr in settings whether to use your cellular connection for image uploads.

Today’s update also builds on top of Flickr’s August update that brought out live video filters and professional editing tools, by adding a new Auto-straightening option which automagically straightens the horizon on wonky snaps.

By the way, the straightening wheel interface (depicted below) resembles Apple’s own iPhoto iOS app a lot, doesn’t it? Finally, the new Flickr fixes an issue with Google sign-ins.

Yahoo 2.30.1503 for iOS (Straighten tool)

On the downside, Flickr still lacks a native iPad interface, which is really a  shame for such a gorgeous-looking app.

As you know, Yahoo yesterday gave every user one terabyte of free storage for email messages and photos (actually, it’s a downgrade from the previous unlimited tier) so you don’t have to worry about running out of space.

Free Flicker accounts have had 1TB of free storage since May 20, 2013, which is Godsent for everyone but pro users. All told, the new Flickr + 1TB of free storage makes the combo more than a nice  option to backup up your iPhone photos online.

Actually, it’s the best free option out there for backing up your photos and 200 times better than Apple’s Photo Stream, which limits you to up to a thousand full-resolution photos for up to 30 days. Additionally, Photo Stream automatically removes images from synced devices after the user reaches the 1,000th photo or hits the 30-day limit.

Flickr can be downloaded free from the App Store.

Apple in iOS 7 has added new system-wide sharing options for Flickr and Vimeo so you can share images to Flickr from any app which supports standard iOS Share Sheets. Speaking of Vimeo, a new v4.0.3 ersion was released today with iOS 7-inspired design (search will return in version 4.0.4, for those wondering).