For the obsessively organized, sorting and searching through your iPhone photos is a problem still waiting to be solved. Even the forthcoming changes due out in iOS 8, which introduces a “smart” search functionality allowing you to search photos by time, location, album name while classifying others as “Favorites,” may not be enough for some.
A new application called QuickPics Photo Manager wants to offer an alternative. With QuickPics, you can instead drag your finger across a series of photos and then add a tag that will help you locate them later.
Tagging is something of a passé concept in an age where some startups are working on computer vision technologies that help identify exactly what’s in your photos. But it’s still a practical way to organize larger galleries while waiting for the newer tech to become more commoditized.
However, the problem with tagging is that it requires too much “manual labor” in most cases. Users may try to tag their photos for a while, then just give up due to the sheer numbers of photos being taken.
So QuickPics’ standout feature is that it lets you just drag your finger across your photos to select items, then tag them. You can slide your finger right, then left, up and down, zig zag, and you can skip photos by lifting your finger up while in the middle of tagging.
Later, you can dive into galleries of those tagged photos, or search through your photos using those same tags to find particular shots.
The idea for the app was dreamed up by Alex Ghatan, whose background is actually in real estate. He says he’s an uncle to three and took a lot of photos of the kids, but then had trouble finding those pictures later on. “After asking if others had this issue – basically everyone did – then I literally started researching the app world and business about a year ago,” he says. “I read books, blogs, I went to various shows – including the TechCrunch event in Downtown Los Angeles.”
“I believe people to want to be able to organize their pics, although it probably won’t be every pic,” he says.
Ghatan, also based in L.A., bootstrapped the project to get it to launch, and the app performs as it claims. It also lets you edit photos and upload them to cloud storage sites like Dropbox or Google Drive, as well as iCloud and Facebook, which is handy for those who turn to use the app as their preferred photo manager.
However, QuickPics lacks the polish of competing photo apps I’ve come across over the years. It could use a good designer to make the app as pretty as it is useful. Some of the fonts are simply too small, the menus can be difficult to tap, and it has to “sync” upon loading which can drag on for a second or two. I dont’ care for the app icon, either. But these more superficial elements could improve over time – what’s important for now is the utilitarian nature of what it can do – offer a fast way to organize and tag your photos.
QuickPics is a $1.99 download, here on iTunes.
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