Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#21

Post by chollida1 » Tue, May 01, 2012, 1:22 PM UTC

ambirex wrote: post #5

A little devil's avocate: Isn't Instagram primarily a photo sharing app? I'm not sure why people are complaining that it starts the upload on filter completion. My only question is how long are photos not marked as user initiated uploads kept?

To me this seems way offside.

What if I, a regular user, uses instagram for taking all my photos.

What if I take nude photos of my wife. Should I really expect instagram to upload them without my permission?

I'm guessing 99% of people would not only be surprised by this behavior, but also outraged.

Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#22

Post by jpk » Tue, May 01, 2012, 1:24 PM UTC

jeffjose wrote: post #13

Gmail used to do that with their attachment. You choose the attachment, and it silently starts to upload. Most applications wait for you to hit "Send" to start uploading.

It used to. It still does, but it used to, too.

Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#23

Post by waveturtle » Tue, May 01, 2012, 1:26 PM UTC

I assumed this was the case because the "time since" label on a freshly posted photo is usually between 10-20 seconds, indicating they had my photo well before I tapped "Done." I think it's a pretty genius little UX hack to make the process feel quick.

Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#24

Post by dpcx » Tue, May 01, 2012, 1:26 PM UTC

chollida1 wrote: post #21

ambirex wrote: post #5

A little devil's avocate: Isn't Instagram primarily a photo sharing app? I'm not sure why people are complaining that it starts the upload on filter completion. My only question is how long are photos not marked as user initiated uploads kept?

To me this seems way offside. What if I, a regular user, uses instagram for taking all my photos. What if I take nude photos of my wife. Should I really expect instagram to upload them without my permission? I'm guessing 99% of people would not only be surprised by this behavior, but also outraged.

If you're taking nude photos of your wife with an app that is specifically known for sharing photos, you're doing it wrong.

99% of people are probably very happy that their uploads don't take 5 minutes once they hit save. To them, it's worth the privacy "risk".

Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#25

Post by citricsquid » Tue, May 01, 2012, 1:28 PM UTC

chollida1 wrote: post #21

ambirex wrote: post #5

A little devil's avocate: Isn't Instagram primarily a photo sharing app? I'm not sure why people are complaining that it starts the upload on filter completion. My only question is how long are photos not marked as user initiated uploads kept?

To me this seems way offside. What if I, a regular user, uses instagram for taking all my photos. What if I take nude photos of my wife. Should I really expect instagram to upload them without my permission? I'm guessing 99% of people would not only be surprised by this behavior, but also outraged.

They're uploaded once you get to the caption screen, not when you take the photo.

Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#26

Post by rogerchucker » Tue, May 01, 2012, 1:33 PM UTC

dpcx wrote: post #24

chollida1 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me this seems way offside. What if I, a regular user, uses instagram for taking all my photos. What if I take nude photos of my wife. Should I really expect instagram to upload them without my permission? I'm guessing 99% of people would not only be surprised by this behavior, but also outraged.

If you're taking nude photos of your wife with an app that is specifically known for sharing photos, you're doing it wrong. 99% of people are probably very happy that their uploads don't take 5 minutes once they hit save. To them, it's worth the privacy "risk".

That's a pretty damn presumptuous thing to say... have you seen any studies or conducted one yourself where people admitted to leaning towards user-experience benefits about online photo sharing at the expense of privacy?

I agree with your point though that users have a responsibility to figure out the objective of the app in order to understand the context of its intended use.

Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#27

Post by gus_massa » Tue, May 01, 2012, 1:40 PM UTC

jeffjose wrote: post #13

Gmail used to do that with their attachment. You choose the attachment, and it silently starts to upload. Most applications wait for you to hit "Send" to start uploading.

There was a progress bar that shows that the progresses of the file upload. It was not secret.

Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#28

Post by simonw » Tue, May 01, 2012, 1:48 PM UTC

skeletonjelly wrote: post #3

So Instagram has photos I don't click "upload" on. Well that's nice to know. Edit: So I tried to use a proxy on my phone but it looks like Instragram on Android doesn't honour the wireless proxy server. Anyone else want to do some digging?

I imagine they start uploading when you click the greet "tick" button.

Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#29

Post by stephen_g » Tue, May 01, 2012, 1:52 PM UTC

veyron wrote: post #4

Where in the TOS does it allow them to upload photos that the users don't explicitly select?

I think it's assumed that you are going to post any photos you take when you use Instagram - as the app doesn't actually save photos to your phone unless you post it (or if the upload fails).

I would understand the concern if it acted like a camera app - ie, you take a photo, it's saved to your phone's photostream, and afterwards you can choose to hit upload, but since you can't use it in that way (it's either post it or the photo is gone) I don't really see a problem.

Re: Why Instagram is so fast at uploading photos

#30

Post by stephen_g » Tue, May 01, 2012, 1:55 PM UTC

chollida1 wrote: post #21

ambirex wrote: post #5

A little devil's avocate: Isn't Instagram primarily a photo sharing app? I'm not sure why people are complaining that it starts the upload on filter completion. My only question is how long are photos not marked as user initiated uploads kept?

To me this seems way offside. What if I, a regular user, uses instagram for taking all my photos. What if I take nude photos of my wife. Should I really expect instagram to upload them without my permission? I'm guessing 99% of people would not only be surprised by this behavior, but also outraged.

You probably wouldn't use Instagram for taking all your photos.

On the iPhone at least, it only saves photos if you post them. You wouldn't be able to use it as a camera for private photos unless you didn't want to keep them.

There is one work around - you can get it to save the photo if the upload fails, so if you put your phone in airplane mode, you can take a private photo. Apart from that, Instagram only works as a sharing app, not a general camera. I think since it works this way, 99% of people won't care.