Photology Lets You Organize Your Photo Library Right On Your iPhone
Photology - Photos app ($1.99) by Red Rabbits is what the built in Photos app on your iPhone should have been. The developers describe the app as “a high-end Photos app that lets you browse, organize, and share your photos in a better way.”
When you open Photology, you’re greeted with a pretty splash screen as the app gathers your images from Photos.app. On the first launch, there will be a prompt for an introductory video that will explain the basics to you. Then you are taken to the default view, Albums, with four different options on the bottom menu bar: Albums, iTunes, Support, and Settings.
Albums will be the screen you’ll spend most of your time on in Photology. You’ll have access to your Camera Roll pictures, and even have the ability to create new albums that you can view in Photology.
As you view your Camera Roll, Photology will organize your photos and videos by date and time. This means that you will see the newest photos at the bottom, organized by date. Timestamps are shown on the thumbnail images by default, so you can see exactly what time you took the image. If you tap on the eye button, you can have the app display or hide the date, time, and whether to show only photos or only videos, or both.
Tapping on an image will allow you to view it just as you would in Photos, though there are some additional features. For one, you can rotate an image, which is especially handy for those pictures that aren’t in the correct orientation. You can also share the image in several ways: email, message, Facebook, or copy to clipboard. A photo can also be assigned to a contact from within the app, or you can copy it to another album in Photology.
When you are back on the main Camera Roll screen again, the folder button allows you to batch share or copy to another album. You can even import photos from iTunes folders into your Camera Roll. However, due to Apple limitations, Photology cannot delete any images from your Camera Roll. Apparently this is a security measure implemented by Apple, so there is no way around it.
The fun thing with Photology is that you can create new albums right on your iPhone. Just tap on the “+” button at the top left corner of the Albums screen, and you can create a new album. Give it a name and passcode (if you have privacy issues), and even sync with Dropbox or Facebook, save it, and it will show up in the Albums screen. Photos can be added to these new albums by going back to the Camera Roll or with the “+” button in the selected album. Photos from these albums can be deleted, and they will end up in the Trash in case you want to restore it.
If you sync photos on to your device from iTunes, then you can access these from Photology as well, via the iTunes tab. It’s essentially the same thing as the other Albums, except you can’t add photos to them.
For those that need additional help with Photology, there is a nice Support section that should answer your questions. There’s an introduction video (which appears at the beginning of the app if you allowed it), help topics, link to the product website, and feedback and requests. The Settings of the app allows you to set up sharing with other social networks (currently only Facebook, but Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube are coming), and backup and syncing with Dropbox. Toggles are here for default date listing, timestamps, and even use of the 24 hour clock. A setting to share over 2G/3G can be disabled if you want the app to share only when you’re on a WiFi network (especially with data caps).
I’m really enjoying using Photology currently, besides the fact that I cannot delete photos from it because of Apple limitations. But I do appreciate being able to see when I took the photos, and especially creating new albums and being able to share them immediately. However, I wish that there was a way to reverse the order of the images (newest at the top); perhaps in the future.
I have been experiencing an annoying issue though – as I’m browsing through the app, and get a notification, Photology will then lock me out while “Updating.” However, it never seems to finish and the only way for me to use the app again is to close it from the background and then launch it again. This gets pretty irritating and I hope that it gets fixed in an upcoming update.
Despite this, I found Photology to be a pretty decent replacement for Photos. If you have always wanted the ability to organize your Camera Roll into albums on your iPhone, then this app is a great way to do that in. Well worth the $1.99 if you need the capability.
