Eye-Fi for the iPhone

bike ride picture taken with iPhone

Today, as most Saturdays are, was family day. We went for a bike ride to the park, and a picnic. I pulled Lily in the Burley, and Annie pulled Kate on a trail-a-bike. The only camera I had with me was my iPhone, so I decided to snap a few pictures. Now, how to get these pictures somewhere that someone else can see them. Email? I don’t like doing one at a time, and entering email addresses is a pain.

How about to a web site? My website. Well, if you have an eye-fi card for your camera, you can use their service with the iPhone. What the eye-fi service normally does is sends pictures from your camera through a special wi-fi memory card through your router to their site. From there they can send it back to your computer, or a web site, or both. I have a site using Gallery2 software that they support.

eye-fi-iphoneThe iPhone app works similar, but you don’t need a wireless card, you already have on in the iPhone. So, the images get sent to eye-fi’s servers, then on to my gallery. Here is the one from today

I think this is pretty cool. The interface is simple. The app displays pictures from your iPhone, and you pick the ones you want to send. You can even see other images that you sent to the service (history). The image you see here is how you select what images to upload.

Over 3G you don’t have the fastest speeds, and if your phone goes to sleep, then the transfer is interrupted, but it does a good job of resuming afterward.

I like that I don’t have to sync the phone, export from iPhoto, and then ftp the images. This is so much easier, and so much more immediate for my family scattered across the continent. The app is simple, and it works. If you have an eye-fi card for a camera, you should definitely try this app.