Eye-Fi functionality comes to iPhone via new application

We'd be fibbing just a wee bit if we said that Eye-Fi functionality for the iPhone has always been imminent, but now that it's real, we suppose we aren't too surprised. Announced today at Macworld, the Eye-Fi application will enable iPhone owners (that just so happen to also own an Eye-Fi card) to upload images taken on their handset to their computer and the web. Reportedly, the app will allow users to aggregate all of their photos from both the iPhone and a digital camera into "organized folders on a computer and to one of 25 online photo sharing and social networking websites." The app is also said to support geotagging just like the Eye-Fi Explore, though two crucial bits of info are sorely missing. First off, what happens with folks that don't own an Eye-Fi card? And second, when is this app even coming out?

[Eric Granata @ Jan 5th 2009 10:40AM]

What I really want is an Eye-Fi card for my camera that will send photos to my iPod touch. That would be the hotness! It'd be like having the camera built in...almost.

[B.J. @ Jan 5th 2009 12:43PM]

What straight guy says the word "hotness"?

[bob @ Jan 5th 2009 12:51PM]

who said he is straight, and what's wrong if he isnt? please elaborate about your small mindedness

[patriotsn1 @ Jan 5th 2009 1:15PM]

Who said he is small minded and what's wrong if he is?

...also with a name like "B.J." I think it's less of an insult and perhaps more of a proposition.

:-)

I keed I keed

[admiralcrunch @ Jan 5th 2009 10:41AM]

already there, i've been using shozu.com on various platforms since september 2006, uploading pics from my cancer treatment.

[Flashpoint @ Jan 5th 2009 10:42AM]

I don't use my Facebook app, but I know the Myspace app allows you to upload directly to your myspace account. I'm sure Apple could have a Flkr app too.

[Dralite @ Jan 5th 2009 11:08AM]

seriously, do you spend 5 minutes on the app store? there are like 50 flikr apps

[OneLove @ Jan 5th 2009 11:11AM]

Flashpoint aren't you too old for facebook and myspace?

[Knee to the Groin @ Jan 5th 2009 11:15PM]

It's not about him being too old, it's about finding the "right age" for him...

"Take a seat"

[Josh Ladella @ Jan 5th 2009 10:43AM]

I expect iEye here soon

[Maestro @ Jan 5th 2009 10:47AM]

Only if you are a pirate.

[dennis @ Jan 5th 2009 11:26AM]

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

[AMiSH PiRATE @ Jan 5th 2009 12:25PM]

avast!

[aYe aye @ Jan 5th 2009 11:16PM]

You rang?

[qwertyk123 @ Jan 5th 2009 10:58AM]

I can already upload photos from my iPhone to my computer or the web. Why would I want to pay extra for an eyefi card to do what I can already do? And, they're geotagged so I don't need eyefi to do that for me. LAME.

[pundit @ Jan 5th 2009 2:35PM]

Um... maybe to use your Nikon D80 SLR in the field. This would be handy for me. On the way back from a meeting and subsequent public event with the Canadian Prime Minister, I was in the back of our vehicle transferring photos to my laptop and then to my iPhone, before using the 3G network to email the photos and a story before press time for a few local papers. Since the photos required no editing, I could theoretically just take a camera and iPhone to many events. No need for my MBP as a middleman and added weight.

[OneLove @ Jan 5th 2009 11:02AM]

OMG! I thought that title was about iEyE.

[Patriks7 @ Jan 5th 2009 11:11AM]

You're not the only one..
What a sad world we are coming to here..

[Josh Ladella @ Jan 5th 2009 11:31AM]

Haha same here, which is why I posted earlier

[Ytril @ Jan 5th 2009 11:52AM]

lol.. I was going to post the same thing.

[Mobius_1 @ Jan 5th 2009 12:53PM]

A quick first glance freaked me out very badly... Then a re-read quickly returned my heart to normal beating patterns.

[orangecat @ Jan 5th 2009 5:27PM]

I am kinda starting to miss iEyE...

[patsy @ Jan 5th 2009 11:11AM]

Pixelpipe.com already lets you do that on several platforms, including the iPhone and the G1. Of course, on the G1 it does it nicely asynchronously in the background, without having to explicitly run the app like on the iPhone, but now I'm just being mean.

[Kris120890 @ Jan 5th 2009 11:13AM]

S-T-O-P S-P-A-M-M-I-N-G

[chefgon_ign @ Jan 5th 2009 11:20AM]

Am I the only one who doesn't understand what this has to do with the Eye-Fi card? Why does it require you to own one if you can't use it in the iPhone anyway?

[TimmyRaa @ Jan 5th 2009 11:32AM]

You're not alone.

The purpose of the EyeFi card normally is to provide the WiFi functionality, which normal cameras don't have. The iPhone could do all this with just software, so why hasn't anyone?

[dennis @ Jan 5th 2009 11:40AM]

Eye-Fi isn't a product that just connects you to the internet, it's more like an semi-automagic service that centers around a user having a device that captures images attached to networking capability, made more convenient by latching onto existing distributed network entry points, like Starbucks Hot Spots or whatever. For digital cameras, the company sells memory cards that work with that service; it's otherwise impossible to competitively enter the flash card market against the manufacturers of those flash cards.

The company seems to be extending the same service to their consumers on their iPhones, precisely because it already has networking capabilities anyway. Regardless of whether you could use a flash memory card to begin with, you wouldn't need an Eye-Fi card for a networkable device with a camera mode anyway.

It looks in some ways like a bonus to existing users and in most ways an attempt to become a mediator between image capturing devices, an archiving/editing device (i.e., a computer), and popular webservices where people want to post pictures. Kind of like Adobe wants to do with their Air stuff. Kind of.

Anyway, the point isn't that iPhone users don't have any options already, it's that the service is already set up to work with cameras, which have almost no user input, and the iPhone is a crap camera anyway, meaning if you care enough to get an Eye-Fi memory card, you care enough about having photos to not use your iPhone for real photos anyway. A lot of people, you might argue, would rather have their crap, subsidiary iPhone camera use the same system of wireless synchronization as your real, primary camera.

[dan @ Jan 5th 2009 11:22AM]

It's too bad the camera on the Iphone isn't very good.

[vijaya bhaskarreddy @ Jan 6th 2009 10:14AM]

is a best option

[Shugg @ Jan 5th 2009 11:49AM]

Wow . Sounds like this will impact many other cell phones,how can iPhone do this .,kris102890 says iPhone is not a smartphone though. U guys might want to get kris102890 ok first ,.

[Pete W @ Jan 5th 2009 12:13PM]

Did Shugg's post make sense to anyone?

[Shugg @ Jan 5th 2009 12:38PM]

On recent post , kris102980 continually disagrees with editors that iPhone is not a smartphone,.

[Landon @ Jan 5th 2009 1:07PM]

He must be a dee dee deeee.....

[Apreche @ Jan 5th 2009 12:32PM]

I just send my pictures from my iPhone to Flickr via e-mail attachment. No extra app required. Just added Flickr as a contact.

[Rob Carlon @ Jan 5th 2009 1:10PM]

What I'd like is a way to send pictures from my real camera over to my iPhone and have them uploaded via 3G. That way I could take pictures all morning, stop for lunch, fire up my iPhone App and Eye-Fi card, and have my pictures uploaded to the web before I headed back out for the afternoon. I'd by the Eye-Fi if it supported that, until then, no thanks.

[Landon @ Jan 5th 2009 1:20PM]

I guess if you didn't have access to the interwebz in any other fashion but I mean you could just upload them straight off your camera with this card. I see what you mean though if you're not around some sort of connection. Wonder how slow that transfer rate would be going from your camera to phone(if that was available that is)? Also I guess you don't shoot in RAW so I suppose jpgs would be fine.

[loocas @ Jan 5th 2009 1:07PM]

That "Digg" again?

[SimbaDogg @ Jan 5th 2009 2:54PM]

i'm not an iphone user...but something about this app is not at all impressive to me. is the iphone not capable of doing uploads/downloads from the phone? if this is the case the is yet another reason why i just couldnt bring myself to get it. for all the cool things it can do, it seems like i hear more and more about the BASIC things it cant do. (mms, video capture, cut n paste etc...and dont think im being an asshole for bringing it up. because i rely on cut n paste in A LOT of apps/messenging programs on my phone)

[Matt K. Olson @ Jan 5th 2009 4:07PM]

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Matt K. Olson
Consultant @ ElephantDrive