Last month, we told you about an app for Android users that enabled instant photo uploads to Facebook, and now we have just learned that Facebook is experimenting with that very feature right now in its own Android app. However, as is often the case with new Facebook features, this is only available to a very select group of users, although Facebook will probably gradually expand availability once it is satisfied with the app’s performance.
According to a Facebook help page, the feature works by automatically uploading all photos you take on your phone to a private album on Facebook. You can decide to sync photos over WiFi only, and from there, you can decide which photos to share with your friends – in other words, it duplicates functionality that’s already present in Google+. However, there are two big differences, and they are fairly important: apparently, Facebook is only giving users 2GB of free private photo storage, although this limit will not apply to pictures you choose to share publicly. Additionally, when syncing over 3G or 4G, photos are shrunk down to about 100K.
And that’s why I’m not going to stop using Google+ for my automatic photo storage backup.
Google+ provides users with unlimited photo backup, and you don’t have to share photos in order to get that unlimited storage. And while Google does downsize the photos it uploads, it’s not nearly as bad as 100K.
However, since this new Facebook feature is still in development, it’s possible that Facebook might change these things before it’s released to more people. And I hope it does, because as it stands now, I have a feeling that lots of people are going to avoid this feature due to these serious shortcomings. I know I will.
[Facebook]
are users given a choice about whether the photos should be uploaded on facebook or not?
ditto to the previous question
Previous question?
Ya I’m not interested in the world seeing ALL my pictures I take
yeah no thanks. I’m cool with dropbox instant upload. I don’t the pictures to be uploaded for others to see without me first approving/editing them.
I read elsewhere that the pictures are uploaded to a private album for you to review and decide which photos to show. Even so I’d prefer not to be automatically opted in when it becomes publicly available.
Dropbox also has that option so it is clear that Facebook isn’t innovating anything. On the surface, it seems like it is saving the work of sharing photos, but it would still require finding the pic on the private album then sharing so I think I’ll pass on this new feature.
So they are now copying Google+.
And of course they have to give you and option to opt-out. I just hope they dont just turn it on automatically when the app updates for everyone.
it doesn’t take much for companies to come up with something bizarre.
Hmm, seeing as how Google+ has been doing this for months now (and it is a great feature as you never have to worry about your photos not being saved somewhere), Facebook is starting to look like a company that has run out of original ideas.
My facebook for android app rarely even works. Due to this I have starting using g+ a lot more and love it.
So Facebook is adding a feature that has been done already AND they are doing it worse than the other available options. How about taking the extra energy and time to fix the android app instead of adding new features to a broken app.
Good point. FB should put time and money into fixing the Android version of their app instead.
Between the instant upload of Google+ and Dropbox, I find it hard to want to use facebook to auto-upload my pics for lesser quality images and more limited space.
I guess i had that functionality as i just found my pictures from my phone lol
I think Facebook should stop opening its users up to spam.
Not interested neither
I think Facebook should focus on much more important things… like a tablet version of their app. That’s a feature I really miss currently!