
Vine for Android - jcfrei
http://www.vine.co/blog/vine-for-android
======
JoeCortopassi
Vine seems awesome, but it has a fundamental issue that I just can't get past:
I can't easily add my friends from Facebook. Now that isn't Vine's (or
Twitter's) fault, it's due to Facebook's new policies[1], a policy that was
nearly too late and required them to buy out Instagram.

I don't know how a company can help someone find their current Facebook
friends, and match that with users of their social network, but it is one of
the essential cogs[2] to usurp Facebook as the dominant social network

-

[1] "You may not use Facebook Platform to promote, or to export user data to,
a product or service that replicates a core Facebook product or service
without our permission" <https://developers.facebook.com/policy/> (section
I.10)

[2] Finding existing friends is only one of the essential parts to growing a
vibrant social network. You also need a stable and clear platform for people
to communicate/share, and a novel feature/s to give people an excuse to try it
out (e.g. Facebooks was more pics and tagging, G+ was circles/hangouts,
Instagram was filters, etc).

~~~
jcfrei
what's also really annoying, is that there's no way to search just by
username; in case you dont want connect via fb or twitter at all.

~~~
pjjw
there is. it's search by username. unless you're talking about android, where
the answer is "real soon now!"

------
jelled
As an android user I'm glad I can finally contribute meaningful content such
as this <https://vine.co/v/b36jXQnxpQF>

~~~
hkmurakami
I had thought that Vine was something akin to Google Hangouts until now.

So now I know instead that it is a simple to use, high quality animated gif
generator... Which I guess isn't such a bad thing. It certainly has
entertainment value (I'm not really of the camp that believes that every
company has to make world-changing products)

~~~
farnsworth
I wouldn't think of it that way, more like Twitter for video sharing. By
adding an arbitrary limit to what you can share - 140 characters for Twitter,
6.5s for Vine - and removing all friction between making the thing and sharing
it, it removes the pressure of feeling like you need to make something good or
polished, and you're more likely to share.

~~~
cageface
Mobile has gone way too far in this direction IMO. Making it easier to share
mostly means not only that people post a ton of crap but they're too ADD to
take the time to understand and appreciate content with more substance. Stuff
like this dumbs us down.

------
EnderMB
Maybe I'm just an entitled jerk, but I get slightly annoyed when a popular app
decides to limit itself to a single platform, and then release later. I
subconsciously didn't bother with Instagram because it took so long to get
onto Android, and to be honest even though I like Vine it's been out for a
while now and to be honest I doubt I'll bother downloading it unless I feel a
real urge to use it.

~~~
Adirael
I find programming for iOS easier. I also think the target market on iOS is
better quality than the Android one, despite of raw market share they are a
lot of small and underpowered Android devices out of there.

If I were creating an startup with a mobile app I would definitely launch on
iOS first, test the waters and see how that goes. If it works then I would
start thinking about launching in other platforms.

~~~
EnderMB
While true, there is little stopping a team from supporting a set of high-
powered Android devices.

The difference between Vine and a startup are obvious. Vine has teams for iOS,
Android, and specific design, whereas a startup typically starts off with one
or two devs at most. Twitter are known for being iOS fans, so they were always
going to tailor their product towards iOS.

~~~
andrewjshults
Vine started out as a small (3 person) startup that Twitter acquired just
before their launch. Could they, post acquisition, have gotten the android
version out quicker, maybe, but it's unlikely that they could have built the
backend, an ios, and an android app with the amount of polish the ios app had
at launch and launched at the same time with just the 3 people they had prior
to the acquisition.

------
DigitalSea
Finally. I recently switched to a Galaxy S4 and lack of Vine was disheartening
to me. I'm glad to finally see a popular app make its way into the worlds most
popular app store. I wish more high-profile apps would launch with iOS and
Android in mind instead of just iOS, us Android users love cool apps too.

~~~
tommaxwell
I'm actually quite happy with the app parody we're reaching. Most, if not all,
of the apps on my Galaxy Nexus home-screen are available on both platforms.

~~~
codeslubber
Hilarious slip. Think you meant parity.

~~~
tommaxwell
Well shit, just noticed this. :p

------
BrainScraps
Does anyone else find this app sort of overwhelming? Not necessarily in a bad
way either.

I remember when my boss showed me a flurry of vines from her trip to
Washington DC, I found myself feeling a bit disoriented as I tried to catch up
with the rapidly switching contexts of each video.

The same things happens to me when I'm scrolling through a feed. It's strange
to me that it doesn't happen with pictures, but I can only describe it as
being teleported through the globe in rapid-fire mode.

Am I just an old fogey at the ripe old age of 31?

~~~
jay_m
No I feel the same way at age 21. It's quite hard to follow the quick-cutting
nature of most videos. The ones I tend to like the most are comedy videos that
have really quick setups and punchlines.

------
Aissen
Yet another app that can access all your contacts and potentially steal/spam
your adressbook. I know this is standard practice on iOS, but it really isn't
acceptable.

~~~
jpswade
I don't think many apps are really in the business of being evil.

I don't really understand this unfounded paranoia that apps are designed by
evil people to do evil things.

~~~
mapleoin
That's not entirely the point. Most of the news we've seen here during the
past years are about people breaking into these apps' (sometimes improperly
secured) servers and then suddenly having access to all this private data
about millions of users.

------
sgarman
Really surprised they are getting away with 4.0 and later. That would be like
a dream come true for me to make an app that only supports those versions.

~~~
farnsworth
Pre-4.0 is down to about a 1/3 these days
(<http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html>) but it's also
probably the 1/3 least likely to use Vine.

~~~
savszymura
I'm in the 1st 1/3, but not the 2nd.

------
tommaxwell
Finally. I love seeing high quality apps make it to Android.

~~~
tommaxwell
Annoyed. I uploaded my first Vine and am connected to Twitter but the share
option isn't appearing under the "More" (three dots) menu.

~~~
dakrisht
Looks like someone has a case of the Monday's

~~~
tommaxwell
You said it.

------
spullara
Amazing how fast Vine has grown since it launched (in January), from Mary
Meeker's report on the internet:

[http://www.slideshare.net/kleinerperkins/kpcb-internet-
trend...](http://www.slideshare.net/kleinerperkins/kpcb-internet-
trends-2013/18)

------
gailees
I wonder how this will affect Instagram usage.

~~~
Zikes
For maximum effectiveness users will purchase Projecteo slides of their
Instagram photos, then Vine themselves doing shadow puppets over the
projections.

~~~
psychometry
This is exactly what my startup, Vinecteogram, does. Check us out on the App
Store!

~~~
chaz
Great! I was looking for a mobile-first version of YouTwitFace.com.

~~~
codeulike
I have no idea if this conversation is satirical or not.

------
mikeevans
Someone already managed to upload the full music video of "Never Gonna Give
You Up", but apparently Twitter asked the user to take it down:

<https://twitter.com/ws/status/341684952276029442>

------
bostonvaulter2
Can someone explain what the use case of vine is? Why would I want to use it?

~~~
craftkiller
Looks to me like they're replacing GIFs. Short clips, muted by default. If
they succeed this will be a welcome change for the internet because video
compression has advanced significantly since the days of GIFs.

~~~
Smudge
It's more of a tweet-like approach to posting videos. The way I see most of my
friends using the service is as a companion to Instagram, when they want to
express a moment in a series of small video clips instead of in a single
photo. I suppose you could call that "replacing GIFs" but it's more like
YouTube than it is like Geocities.

~~~
wcfields
There were a few companies that attempted to do this (
[http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/04/after-its-12-seconds-of-
fam...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/04/after-its-12-seconds-of-
fame-12seconds-tv-fizzles-out/) ) but Vine got it right:

* Timing: More people have camera phones / 3G/4G/LTE * Aping the existing Instagram structure for the news feed * Probably initially used AWS backend for cheap storage * Native App focus first and foremost * Immediate acquisition by Twitter

------
gailees
Thank God.

~~~
yefim323
Finally.

~~~
dakrisht
This is a monumental milestone in innovation. Honored to be part of a society
where Vine on Android makes the HN front page.

~~~
alayne
This is our generation's moon shot.

~~~
dakrisht
Elon Musk only wishes he were a part of this

~~~
shitlord
But would he pay his workers in Bitcoins?

~~~
dakrisht
I think he would pay them with Zynga shares.

------
jere
I've been waiting for this. Now, only if a single one of the android phones
had a decent camera, I'd be in business.

~~~
foley
I'd consider the camera on the HTC One as one of the best mobile cameras
available.

~~~
fpgeek
It will be interesting to see if HTC tries to set up some sort of Zoe to Vine
integration.

------
qwertzlcoatl
Is there a possibilty to make vines private for a personal travel diary? It
would be really handy.

~~~
mrtimo
agreed. would love a tool like this. would use it to make something like this:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/cesar_kuriyama_one_second_every_day...](http://www.ted.com/talks/cesar_kuriyama_one_second_every_day.html)

~~~
qwertzlcoatl
I've got three random followers the first day I setup a vine account, even
though I had no vines uploaded yet. I really don't want every vine I make to
be shared publicly. This definitely limits my usage of this app.

------
petarb
it's way to difficult to find your friends on the Android version, especially
when you can't search by username

------
ParadisoShlee
Holy Capacity issues batman. the vines are not loading for me...

------
the1
This app is incompatible with your Virgin Mobile LGE VM670.

------
arrowgunz
Ewww!!!

------
fakeer
Painfully slow and clunky non-native app. Crashed thrice on my Galaxy Nexus
4.2.2. Closed it. Not using as of now.

Guess, I'll wait for a few updates or patches before uninstalling. Or maybe
I'll reinstall after it's stable enough.

By the way, I don't think there's a way to browse Vine on the web, is it?

App had it seems pre-subscribed to some of the users/streams/or-vines-maybe,
because my _feed_ is not empty and I don't see a way to empty it and then
maybe subscribe to users/handles I would find fitting to my taste(I doubt that
seeing all the animations).

~~~
spullara
You might try <http://www.vpeeker.com> for an overwhelming web experience.

