Flickpad Makes Sharing Facebook and Flickr Photos On Your iPad Easy
Flickpad Pro for Facebook and Flickr ($0.99) by Shacked Software is an app that beautifully displays photos from both Facebook and Flickr in a gorgeous interface for your iPad.
These days, it's hard to find someone that doesn't somehow share their photographs on Facebook or Flickr. So with that in mind, wouldn't it be great to natively display photographs on the iPad that are stored in the clouds of Facebook and Flickr? Well, Flickpad does just that.
Once you get your Facebook or Flickr accounts set up in Flickpad, you'll see a bunch of photographs that will be strewn across a wooden tabletop interface. These photos look similar to Polaroids in the interface, and can be dragged around and selected to view in a full screen mode. By default it will show photos from Today, but you can view photos from previous days as well. An option to refresh the photos on the table is provided if you feel the need to check if anything is new.
What's fun is that you can "flick" a photo off the tabletop and it will be replaced with another photograph to look at. On Facebook photos, you can even view likes and comments or add your own, which is great since it's become the essential Facebook experience. With Flickr photos, you can add/view comments and even favorite photos. Flickpad allows you do view all photos from either site in a slideshow format, which is nice to show off among family and friends.
You can view your own photos on Facebook or Flickr, and even view specific Facebook friends from the menu. With Flickr, you can do the same, with the addition of Groups and Favorites, and even the "Explore" feature of Flickr, which shows you popular photos currently on the site.
Flickpad makes use of the multitouch display of the iPad, bringing along some unique controls. The app will always have a help guide for these touch controls from a button at the top, so it's always accessible. There are even video tutorials if you need more help using the app.
A very great thing about Flickpad is the ability to have more than one user account. No, not your Facebook/Flickr accounts, an actual account associated with these so that multiple people can use Flickpad. Think of user accounts on a computer - it works like that. You can create as many accounts as you need to, and tie in the associating Facebook/Flickr accounts to them. Flickpad allows super easy and fast account switching so anyone can view their photos at any time.
Settings will allow you to adjust pagination (one day or one week), slideshow interval (3 or 6 seconds or 10 minutes), photo background color (clear will show woodgrain, black, or gray), and a toggle to mark zoomed photos as seen. Facebook and Flickr accounts can be modified here as well.
I found Flickpad to be a good option to browse photographs on Flickr and Facebook on my iPad. However, it was not without some problems.
Initially, I was unable to log in to Flickr after logging in to Facebook first. This was because the login window would shrink when I tapped the text entry field, thus making it impossible to type in my credentials or send it through. This happened to the first 7 or so times I attempted to log in, both in portrait and landscape mode. Eventually later, I was able to log in to Flickr without problems. Not sure what the problem was in the beginning.
I also experienced crashes during my Flickr login fiasco. The app also seemed to run a bit sluggish at times, making animations look laggy and choppy. Perhaps this is because I'm using a first gen iPad - maybe those with an iPad 2 won't experience this problem.
Flickpad does not display EXIF data of photographs on Flickr, which I found to be disappointing. I'm used to being able to view this information from other apps, so I thought I could find it in here as well. Hopefully, it will be added in the future to give it the complete Flickr experience.
The woodgrain of the tabletop interface is not the best choice, but Flickpad does not provide any additional options for backgrounds. Some may like the woodgrain, but I find it a bit harsh looking, personally. It's too bold against the photos you're trying to look at. I hope that the developers can give more options for backgrounds or at least make it a less daring woodgrain pattern.
Flickpad does run a bit slow on the original iPad, but those with iPad 2s may find the Flickpad experience better. I would recommend checking it out either way at the sale price of $0.99. The price will go back up to $2.99 with the 2.5 update, which will hopefully improve the app's performance as well as add to the experience.
