Everpix
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Tis the season to subscribe: What's on my annual service renewal lists
As November rolls around, it's generally time for me to take stock, look at my current service subscriptions (as opposed to entertainment subscriptions like Netflix and Hulu) and weigh what items I'm going to invest in for the next twelve months. Some of my subscriptions are annual choices. They time out after 12 months. Others are ongoing, so a time to evaluate and choose is especially helpful. Of course, services are a highly personal thing. The ones I subscribe to may or may not meet your needs and vice versa. So I've tried to keep my list of the services I'm considering fairly general and Apple consumer specific. If you have suggestions to add, please drop them in the comments -- and let me know if you run across particular deals that crop up near Black Friday. Offsite Backup. Time Machine, which I swear by, will get you only so far in life. Unless you're backing up offsite, you're exposing your data to enormous risk. Any physical damage to your workspace will probably affect your onsite backups as well as your main system. Offsite means greater peace of mind. Personally, I'm a Crashplan customer due to the unlimited backups and reasonable yearly fees. (Plus Mike Evangelist really sold me on the service.) Regardless of which provider you go with, you really should be thinking about adding an offsite plan to your Black Friday grab bag. Last year, Crashplan offered an insanely sweet deal for new customers (which I missed out on by two freaking weeks) so keep your eyes open for theirs and other deals on the day. VPN Service. If you lean towards the Wi-Fi lifestyle (and I do), when hanging out at Panera, Einsteins, Starbucks, and so forth, you'll probably want to consider picking up a VPN subscription for the year. There's a lot of give and take between Wi-Fi and onboard cellular, but the biggest difference is security. When you grab data directly over cellular, you can generally feel pretty good about privacy. Using shared Wi Fi means compromise -- speed, reliability, transparency. Using VPN enables you to shop, read mail, and perform other personal tasks without worrying about snooping. I've been using Witopia this year and it's been pretty good. I find it much better for light surfing and email when on the go than for privacy when at home, so about 90% of my use has been on my iPad and MacBook Air. Although I had intended to use VPN for day-to-day work, I found that heavy data loads (such as downloading new versions of Xcode) over VPN is just an exercise in frustration. Cloud. I want my data wherever I am. I'm a big fan of Dropbox and not such a big fan of iCloud but that's just me. Your mileage will, of course, vary -- and there are many new providers now out there in the field. This is a really good time of year to hunt for cloud deals for pro level accounts. Just be aware that real life stories like Everpix demonstrate why you need to be very, very careful as to where you trust your data. Online Apps. Unlike last year, this is the year that subscribing to cloud-based applications really took off. You might want to take a peek at Adobe, Microsoft Office, or Apple's iWork to see if their offerings might be what you need for next year. I'm intrigued by iWork in particular, and looking forward to seeing how well it transforms my work flow from desk-based to mobile. What services do you subscribe to? And which ones are you considering testing for the first time this year?
This week on gdgt: iPad Air, Sculpt Comfort Mouse and Everpix alternatives
Each week, our friends at gdgt go through the latest gadgets and score them to help you decide which ones to buy. Here are some of their most recent picks and discussions. Want more? Visit gdgt anytime to catch up on the latest, and subscribe to gdgt's newsletter to get a weekly roundup in your inbox.
Daily Update for November 5, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Everpix goes out of business, subscribers will be refunded
Everpix has announced that after two years, it has closed shop, with the service disappearing by December 15. It's left those with large photo collections at a loss. Everpix was created with those users in mind, as it was designed to corral a lot of photos into mangeable collections. Everpix designer Wayne Fan told TUAW's Dave Caolo in June that the average customer had uploaded 10,000 photos, and Dave himself said he had 14,000 photos on Everpix. TidBITS Managing Editor Josh Centers said he had uploaded a 70 GB photo collection to the service. Following the fate of a number of other startups, Everpix failed to attract enough funding to keep the company going and pay its employees. The Verge has posted a lovely feature on the demise of Everpix and how founder Pierre-Olivier Latour and his team worked to the last-possible second to keep the service going, including an acquisition from Path that fell through. Subscribers will be fully refunded. The Verge notes this will cost roughly US$200,000, that figure including the employees' full salaries. Everpix is selling off its tech to help cover those costs, but admitted in the support document on its site that it will take time to refund subscribers. As of today, Everpix is no longer accepting new users and is in read-only mode until the servers shut down for good. Users have until December 15 to download photos from Everpix, if they don't have an available backup at hand.
Everpix 2.0 redesigned, improves navigation greatly
Everpix 2.0 (here's our review of version 1), out today for iPad and iPhone, looks to address what its developers call "the photo mess." "Our average customer has 10,000 photos and is uploading an additional 1,500 per year," Everpix designer Wayne Fan told me. "When we asked, 'How do you feel about your photo collection?' many responded that they felt frustrated and couldn't find photos they wanted to see." I've been there. Fortunately, Everpix 2.0 wants to address that problem. The app's user interface has been completely redesigned and features what you can consider an "ellipsis" for your photos, which works pretty well. Say you went nuts at an event and took lots of photos. In the last image displayed in Everpix 2.0's grid view, you'll see a number representing the total number of photos in that batch. Tap it to jump to them via a very nice animation (note also that Everpix does a good job of identifying the "best" images to represent that event before the ellipsis). What's even better: if you want to jump directly to a moment, just tap and hold, and a lovely animation takes you right to it. While you're in that event, the photos before and after it don't disappear, but are greyed out above and below. Tap either to jump to them. It's really fast navigation and prevents you from having to drill down and down to find something you're after. Everpix is also working to perfect the "memory lane" aspect of photography, and version 2.0 is a big step towards reaching that goal. Previously, users could opt to receive an email that highlighted photos taken in years gone by (also a feature in the Timehop app). Now that feature is built right into Everpix, and it's called Flashback. Just tap the Flashback button and see photos you took one year ago, two or more. What good is storing all those images in the cloud if you never look at them? Flashback is a subtle and welcome prompt to re-live where you've been. I recently uploaded over 10K photos to Everpix (making me the "average" user) and Flashback has been great. I'm looking at photos that are over a decade old for the first time in a long time. Everpix 2.0 is universal and free to download. The service requires a subscription at US$4.99 per month for unlimited storage. Combine that with the easy browsing and great Flashback feature, and you've got a winner. [Other options for bulk photo storage include the terabyte-enabled new Flickr and Shutterfly's ThisLife service. -Ed.]
