In August 2012, Bump Technologies released a new version of photo app known as Flock. The company’s intention was to eliminate the need for a user to keep asking their family members or friends to upload images that they took together on special events. What Flock does is that it pulls such shared photos together and creates a shared album for them. That way you do not have to wait forever for your acquaintances to share their photos with you through email because this service brings them all together.
How It Works
The app does not use your phone’s camera to edit your photos. All it does is pull together photos taken by all your friends and create a centralized and shared album. In order to do this, all of you need is to be registered to Facebook and have the location services of your smartphone turned on. You will also need to turn on camera geo-tagging on your phones when you take the photos. Of course, you and all of your friends should have the Flock app installed and running in your phone. Make sure the app is authorized to access your Facebook data to avoid inconvenience. Once you are set, go ahead and take photos with your phone.
Flock will do its magic.
When Flock is running, it keeps on searching for your Facebook friends who are already using it. In case a friend does not have Flock installed yet, he or she will receive an email or SMS which introduces the app to them. Any photos found to be relevant during the search are quickly uploaded to the shared album. If a group photo includes both your friends and some strangers, Flock works well to filter the strange figures and only share the photo with your friends. The good news is that you do not have to stop what you were doing in order to perform all these tasks because Flock runs quietly in the background.
Other Features
Despite using Facebook to create small networks of friends, Flock will not post annoying messages on your timeline without your consent. It works well to bring your friends even closer by sharing photos of the many memorable moments you have together without being intrusive. You do not have to constantly check if your friends have shared photos with you. The app will post automatic notifications directly to your phone’s screen whenever there are photos for you to view. The app will also remind you to share some of the photos that may interest your friends and family. All this is possible by enabling the push notifications option on the app’s settings. Unlike most apps using the older location technologies, Flock uses the latest technology in gathering location information. This ensures that the app does not eat up on your phone’s battery while it runs. If you install the app and realize that you have older photos that you may want to share, don’t worry. Flock will work backwards in order to come up with albums for such photos, as long as they have been taken while the location information is enabled. This will give you the chance to relish old memories while you share the past experiences with those close to your heart.
Conclusion
This fun app readily works with a majority of camera apps and it is easy to use. It is a better way to share photos than many other social apps, as you really are only sharing with your friends on Flock. A highly recommended app for your iPhone, Flock happens to be free, which in a way, makes it even better.
Fred is a tech blogger and online marketing specialist who knows how to create a website
