I think now it would be: iPhone <----> Closest CloudFront Edge Server <-----> S3 The upload to the edge CF server could be ACK'd faster and at this point the

I think now it would be: iPhone <----> Closest CloudFront Edge Server <-----> S3 The upload to the edge CF server could be ACK'd faster and at this point the user still has a copy and so does the edge server. If meanwhile he sends somebody a link to this photo, if they are nearby, they'll hit the same edge server and get it faster not slower. If on the other hand they are far away they'll hit a different edge server that would have to grab it in turn from S3 but that would have happened anyway, no? As far as I understand it. Also a trick that helps propagate things to CF edges faster just occurred to me: S3 can be setup to POST somewhere after every write. So maybe.. iPhone <----> Closest CloudFront Edge Server <-----> S3 ----> Central service (App Engine? :P ) ---> Cloudfront Edge{1,2,3..} <---> S3. But that might be a tad overkill, heh. (Also I'm not sure how you can trick CF to direct to a specific edge without using proxies)