Photo List

PhotoList provides several different services. One, provides a way to organize your photos on your iPhone. It allows you to give them titles and also rate them out of five stars. Secondly, it hooks you up with a FTP site where you can upload your photos and quickly get them onto your phone, without having to go through the usual syncing process.

You’ll begin by adding folders to the app . Once you’ve created a folder tap on it and then tap the plus sign (bottom left corner) to add photos. From here you can add photos from your iPhone camera roll or photo library. Next you can give the photo a title and rating. When you have several photos in your folder you can sort them by either rating or name. There is also the option to download a photo from Facebook but I haven’t tried that feature out yet.

On the main “Folders” screen, towards the top, you’ll see something that says “Upload photos: ftp://” followed by some numbers. If you open up your internet browser and copy that ftp address into the address bar you’ll be taken to an ftp site where you can upload photos directly to your phone. In order for this to work you must be connected to a wireless network. If you have already created folders on your phone they will show up on this site. If you haven’t you can create them here. I use a PC that is running Windows 7 so my how to steps for uploading a photo might not be exactly what will work for you. (You can also find instructions in the PhotoList app on how to make this process work for you.) Here is how I get it done. I enter the ftp address in my internet browser’s address bar. Then I click on “Page” and “Open FTP site in Windows Explorer.” Now I open “Computer” on my start menu and navigate to the location where my photos are stored. Then it’s just a matter of dragging and dropping them onto a folder in the opened Windows Explorer ftp site. The photos are copied to this location and  will show up in the Photo List app. Underneath the upload photos ftp is another that says “View photos: http://” followed by the same numbers for your ftp site. Type this into your address bar and you’ll see your photos online.

I was curious about security and the uniqueness of the FTP addresses so I asked the app’s seller about it. They told me that you should always be careful when wirelessly transferring data but the security risk in the PhotoList FTP function is very small.  Also, ftp addresses are assigned by a router when you connect and are unique to the iPhone on the wireless network.  I like knowing that.

I haven’t had the time to go through and organize the photos on my iPhone yet. I also don’t use a service like Flickr. I go for good old fashioned Windows Explorer, sometimes Picassa and Photoshop Elements. I like the way PhotoList allows me to to title and rate my pictures. But the feature I really like is the FTP upload. Every time I go to sync photos onto my iPhone I get confused. It’s not that it’s a hard process, just one that doesn’t stick with me. This  upload process is quick and once you’ve done it a few times, easy too. Something to note though, the photos you upload don’t appear on your regular photo library or camera roll, only in PhotoList.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: Raisix

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.