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Ok- so I was one of the thousands near the Palace on Friday, and used it as an opportunity to properly test color in a public situation. It failed. If you've e
by JacobAldridge 16y ago
Ok- so I was one of the thousands near the Palace on Friday, and used it as an opportunity to properly test color in a public situation. It failed.
If you've ever tried to send a text message from a concert or football match, you'd understand the first issue: needing to be online to use the app gives it woeful performance when 500,000+ people are trying to simultaneously access cell networks in a confined space. The Facebook App ground to a halt and messages took hours to get through: real time photo sharing app? No chance.
As a consequence of this, we (I got my beautiful wife to use it as well, so we had a base group) kept getting dropped from the group. By the end of the day, there were five members of the group- but most of our photos were added to our solo group instead! So we saw few photos from others, even ourselves.
Not being easily connected also sucked battery life as the app seemed to be constantly trying to geo locate. We killed it half way through the day, when we had to turn our phones off to preserve battery.
I can see potential here- that's the mulligan on offer. At my next conference- smaller crowd and something stronger in common than our head of state- this could be useful. But sharing my photos through a confusing interface that doesn't work in big crowds and is supposed to only add value in big crowds? Not again.
As for the 500 photos- we ended up with 32 in our group and another dozen that ended up in our solo accounts. Did the app recognise and add them?
Sent from phone so apologies for typos, if any.
- JacobAldridge 16y agoJust tried to see if our photos made it. Can't view either the Daily Telegraph page or the Color compilation page from my iPhone!
- arethuza 16y agoHave you tried searching for yourself in the BBC high hi-def crowd picture taken from the Palace? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13200114 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13200114
- JacobAldridge 16y agoSeems to need flash so will check from laptop next week- thanks for the link. I'm blurred in the background of one low-res BBC shot and also made the ITV news background, which made for a laugh at our after party.
- mcdowall 16y agoUnrelated, but pretty cool! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13248642 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13248642
- troymc 16y agoI wonder if there's a way to use a short-range radio signal on a public band (like CB, if that still exists) to do local sharing at crowded places. Can the radios in iPhones and typical Android phones even do such a thing?
- bradleyland 16y agoCell phone radios are purpose built to save space, expense, licensing, and energy. They can only communicate using the specific frequencies and technologies (GSM, CDMA, WiFi, etc) that they were designed for.
- MatthewPhillips 16y agoThis is the killer point. The most fun/useful cases for Color are events; which inevitably means strained networks. I think a Color is destined to become chatroulette for the bar scene.
- christoph 16y agoI was up there as well, I used instagram on my old iPhone 3G (as well as rocking a DSLR) and had barely any problems at all. In fact I found the whole experience of the app very liberating, literally taking shots on the phone, styling them, uploading them and having people commenting, liking and following me within in minutes of them going up. I can't say I've tried Color, but I see it struggling to beat the penetration that instagram has achieved.