

Carousel – Gallery from Dropbox for photos and videos - uptown
https://www.carousel.com/

======
ynniv
You can't use this on iOS without granting Photo permissions, and when you do
it automatically uploads all your photos to Dropbox. So this doesn't actually
improve the Dropbox photo sharing experience - it demands that your phone's
camera be Dropbox's camera. Maybe that's what some people want, but I can't
ask the friends and family with whom I want to share photos to use this, so
there's no point in using it myself.

~~~
cwilson
Yeah, this is a deal-breaker for me as well. Why can't I selectively push my
photos up? There are a ton of photos I would never want synced automatically
(multiple shots of one thing where I'm going to pick the best, normal shot vs
Instagram shot, screenshots from my phone, images saved from email or the web,
etc).

Not to mention I can't get into the apps settings without letting it start to
auto-upload thousands of pictures to check if it's going to do it over wifi-
only or use my data.

~~~
tpowell
Ditto. I signed in and realized what was happening, looked for options in
settings... no dice. I tried to sign out, and then it was going to sign me out
of BOTH carousel and dropbox, so I just deleted the app. I think you should at
least have the option to choose whether you want to update your previous
photos, if not more granular controls.

I like their concept of simple sharing of albums. I shouldn't have to sync
every photo to use it, though.

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orky56
Is it just me or does the parallax effect on the landing page need a bit of
tuning? I had to scroll much more than similar sites to get a visual response.

~~~
coffeecodecouch
But it _pops_ [0]! In 10 years I hope we look back at these ridiculous
scrolling beasts and laugh at them the same way we scoff at the flash intros
from not too long ago.

[0]
[http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell)

~~~
dean
I hope it doesn't take 10 years.

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aspidistra
I can't be the only one who thought of the Mad Men "Carousel" pitch. [1]

The stylised photos on this website are in the same genre as those Don Draper
used.

[1]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWyLaXCV2_s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWyLaXCV2_s)

~~~
alceufc
I also thought about that too. It would be nice to hear from people working at
Dropbox if this was the source of inspiration for the app name and page
design.

~~~
acchow
Maybe not the Mad Men scene, but the name and logo are clearly nods to the
Kodak Carousel.

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dewey
Interesting, unfortunately their landing page isn't really telling me a lot
about this yet. Is it mobile only? I don't see the difference to the Camera
Uploads they are already offering then.

If there'd be something like this, accessible from mobile and your regular
browser integrated with Lightroom/Aperture/Adobe Bridge that'd be pretty sweet
to keep a copy of your library accessible at all times from anywhere. Unlike
my current backups to Glacier. (I know it won't replace a proper backup but
it'd be a good additional backup with the side effect of making it accessible
from different devices).

~~~
k-mcgrady
Watch the video, it explains it better. It basically looks like a mobile app
designed just for viewing photos you have stored on Dropbox. I assume the aim
is to offer a better photo specific experience than the Dropbox app can.

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subpixel
Hey loom.com - please feel the heat. I put all my family photos on your
service and everyone hates the functionality. I have no desire to use Dropbox
for this, and lose all that local storage, but whoever makes photos easiest
for the moms of the world will win in the end.

~~~
rizwan
[ _cough_ ]([http://cluster.co](http://cluster.co)). I work on it. It's less
"storage/archival" and more "private photo/video social network".

~~~
subpixel
I think that looks pretty cool, but I feel I should stress that 99% of users
don't need _another_ way to organize and share photos - they need a _primary_
way to do that.

When folks sync their cameras and phones, they wind up with massive,
disorganized mountains of images in the form of unwieldy iPhoto libraries. At
a certain point (say, a year after the birth of a child) the task of going in
and manually organizing photos, albums, sets or whatever is so daunting people
just ignore it.

That was the promise of Loom - dump your photos here, and they appear
automagically in a timeline you can edit and share. The execution leaves a lot
to be desired, as I've suggested.

~~~
rizwan
Yeah, totally agree about the problem of massive, disorganized mountains of
images. A lot of companies shy away from trying to solve that, because
ultimately it's profoundly hard to scale it (e.g. Everpix). Loom and Everpix
are the closest to really trying to tackle it. Dropbox can "solve" it, as long
as you are willing to pay to store your photos in a sync-everywhere folder.

Cluster isn't trying to solve the "organize and share" problem, it's trying to
make the stuff you share reach the right people _in the right context_. I
think what Dropbox is doing fits their business model really well and adds a
beautiful layer on top of your photos/videos in your Dropbox account.

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martingordon
Carousel is a non-starter for me for the sole reason that it doesn't have the
ability to set a root folder. I keep a lot of things in Dropbox, including
iWork documents, web sites, and iOS projects and I don't need the "photos"
from those projects appearing in the app.

I've been using Unbound, which does let me set a root folder, but turns each
folder into an Album when I'd prefer to just have the Photos.app/Carousel
timeline view.

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chops
I have a buddy who released something similar to this a little over a year ago
called "The Carousel" ([https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/carousel-slide-
projector-for...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/carousel-slide-projector-
for/id572401095?mt=8)). It's complete with the old slide projector sounds and
slide replacement animations (iirc). It sources the gallery images from
Instagram.

While being a standalone ipad gallery app, it can also be tethered with apple
TV to make your ipad act as the slide projector by mock-projecting the gallery
on your TV.

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kingnight
Ah, very excited for this. I have just now been looking at the API of dropbox
to look into making a photos app that fits my needs. The big request I have is
for Dropbox to render raw files in their website, mobile app, and now
carousel. It's great the video shows g-pa taking photos on a film camera, and
presumably these are being scanned to jpegs, but what about people who shoot
raw, or have images scanned to raw? Would LOVE for my 10000s raw images to be
viewable in this. Please. Please? They're just taking up space right now and
un-viewable, and dreaming for the day they get "activated".

~~~
jdavis703
Perhaps you should try Lightroom's new cloud offerings [0].

[0] [https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-
cloud/learn/start/tutorials...](https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-
cloud/learn/start/tutorials/lightroom-mobile.html)

~~~
kingnight
I've reviewed their offerings since they announced with great interest, but it
doesn't have the whole 'sync' across devices as neatly coupled as this
(dropbox) does. They only sync up the 'smart preview's of the raw files from
the desktop. There is also a 20gb limit. I am nearing the 200gb limit of my
dropbox.

Right now w/ Dropbox/Carousel, I have mobile photos uploaded via Camera Upload
and that is a watched folder in Lightroom, so now my Phone/Pad/Web/Desktop-
Lightroom are all in terrific sync, just without RAW files being viewable
anywhere but Desktop.

~~~
octapus
Lightroom for Mobile doesnt seem to have a set limit:

From their FAQ {1]: Does syncing images to Lightroom mobile use a portion of
the 20GB of cloud storage I get with my Creative Cloud complete membership?

[1] [http://www.adobe.com/products/lightroom-
mobile/faq.html](http://www.adobe.com/products/lightroom-mobile/faq.html) No,
the images synced to Lightroom mobile are not counted as a part of your 20GB
of cloud storage.

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ajma
It's available now:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dropbox.ca...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dropbox.carousel)

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galenko
Is there a service that does this, but lets you store the photos in the cloud?

1\. Take a pic

2\. Pic gets uploaded to the service, after x gets deleted from local device,
only a small thumbnail remains.

3\. Open this history view, you can see thumbnails, pic gets downloaded when
you click on it, large pic gets deleted again after x.

If I had something that worked like this, I would be so happy.

~~~
evan_
Picturelife kind of works the way you describe. It doesn't delete your camera
roll automatically but other than that it's just a big online storage for your
photos. You can browse all of your images from the mobile app and it shows
thumbnails until you zoom them.

Referral link:
[https://picturelife.com/?love=YqDZtHd3OI99uX](https://picturelife.com/?love=YqDZtHd3OI99uX)

~~~
tombot
+1 Recommend Picturelife.

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philwebster
It would be nice if there was just a little more branding to show that this is
a Dropbox-created product. "from Dropbox" isn't as clear as "by Dropbox". (Are
photos being served "from" my Dropbox?) I didn't scroll all the way to the
bottom the first time on the page to see the copyright.

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strick
If you are interested in Carousel you might also be interested in a service I
built and am currently beta testing:

[http://www.yearloop.com/](http://www.yearloop.com/)

Each day it sends me an email with pictures from 1 yr ago, 2 yrs ago, etc. It
is also powered by Dropbox.

~~~
timdorr
How is it different from Timehop? [http://timehop.com/](http://timehop.com/)

~~~
Smudge
Timehop shifted focus onto their app. I'm not sure I even get the emails from
them anymore. (Checking my timehop email used to be a daily event for me...)

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frade33
Ever heard of Flickr.? 1 tb for free. Dropbox out of blue has started to lose
the territory , where it always been a king. Cloud Storage.

I meant we are living in the age where people're giving away 1tb here and
there. Speaking of 1 tb, how exactly this would be different than, let's say
the flickr iOS app itself.

I love dropbox because I have piled up 19gb free storage, because i am a whore
and have plenty of email contacts, nevermind. But If I would ever need to
shell out some money, hmmm well, I would definitely look for a company which
is a reliable and cheaper and even better has its own data centers. you
guessed it right. who I am referring to.

~~~
Einstalbert
I want to like FlickR so much. I've been a premium member for years but their
upload client for more than a few photos at a time is garbage. I also don't
like how crude their online organization options are. I know with a bit of
polish, it can be the king of ease in interface, but right now I am looking
for something a bit more modern. Carousel COULD have been a no-brainer
replacement, but I am glad I came here to get the insight of others; while
FlickR may do a lot of things wrong, it sounds like Dropbox fails even harder
on the organizational scale (root folders?)

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mkempe
How many people want to rent space in the cloud to store _all_ their photos?
If our home did it we'd have to pay 2x $199 (200 GB each) or 2x $499 (500 GB
each) per year -- plus buy computers with storage large enough to ferry this
around (or external HDs).

Apple offers "photostream" as a free, transactional mechanism to move photos
from phone to computer -- the central storage and usage of photos remains at
home. Why would I pay a cloud storage company $400 or even $1,000 per year to
keep my own photos?

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rikkus
"Carousel automatically backs up photos and videos to Dropbox as you take
them"

Yes, but also:

Dropbox automatically backs up photos and videos to Dropbox as you take them.

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devindotcom
All my photos... from now on? Can this check and index photos stored on my
computer (not on dropbox) or on photo services like Flickr, and social
networks as well? If it's supposed to be a one stop shop I would want
something like that. The details are kind of few and far between...

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gdubs
Neat. We just had our first child and I'm once again weighing various methods
of storing / accessing all the photos I'm taking. Right now I'm mostly using
physical backups and S3, but having a better way to browse the archived images
would be great.

~~~
jmathai
I have a local backup of my S3 bucket which uses Trovebox as a web/mobile
frontend.

[https://jmathai.trovebox.com/photos/album-
hg/token-d0386fc3f...](https://jmathai.trovebox.com/photos/album-
hg/token-d0386fc3f3/list)

Source available at
[https://github.com/photo/frontend](https://github.com/photo/frontend)

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keithwarren
Clear now that the SnapJoy guys did not just disappear, I would venture this
was out of their work.

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Oculus
It's interesting how this is a separate app from the Dropbox app (I make this
assumption because the app store links say the app isn't up yet). I'd imagine
with DB's mobile pictures push the app would be integrated into the DB app
itself.

~~~
makeramen
I think they're trying to copy Google+'s "Photos" app which takes over the
gallery while offering background upload in the same app.

Although on Android with Google+ it's bundled in the same apk, just 2 separate
Launcher icons.

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laoba
IF you're looking for a photo/video gallery for not only Dropbox, but Google
Drive, Flickr, Facebook, and more, check out
[http://cloudgalleryapp.com/](http://cloudgalleryapp.com/)

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orky56
That video...escalated quickly.

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pradn
Does the storage space for your photos come out of your Dropbox quota or is
this separate? Are the photos shown just all the photos in my Dropbox or from
a particular folder? The website needs more details.

~~~
Spone
[https://www.carousel.com/help](https://www.carousel.com/help)

Q: How many photos can I put in Carousel? A: The only limit to the number of
pictures you can put in your Carousel is the amount of space in your Dropbox.
If you have a 100 GB Dropbox account, you can have up to 100 GB of photos
(that’s about 40,000 of them!) and videos in your Carousel.

Q: Where are my photos saved? A: Photos in your Carousel are stored safely in
your Dropbox account. Specifically, photos you take are saved in your
Dropbox’s “Camera Uploads” folder. Photos that you choose to keep will be
found in your Dropbox’s “Carousel” folder. Within the “Carousel” folder,
photos will be stored in folders named after the person who sent you the
photos.

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joeblau
I skipped ahead and got right to the part where the woman was pushing/yelling
during delivery. I had reread the title again just to make sure I was looking
at the correct video.

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databoy
It's interesting to see this. Realplayer Cloud has been doing the video part
of this. Moreover, they let me cast it on Chromecast. How is this any better
for videos?

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ByronFortescue
I miss Everpix :'(

~~~
baby
Wow I didn't know it was dead. I feel like there's really a need for a good
photo/video management application. I didn't really like Everpix though, I
felt like it was poorly made. Maybe that kind of thing need a desktop
application to be truly good.

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ajma
"Carousel is taking longer than expected to go live in the App Store & Google
Play. Please try again in a few minutes."

~~~
tjbarbour
Its actually up, they need to remove their js blockade
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dropbox.ca...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dropbox.carousel)

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tomschlick
How does this differ from / integrate with the existing camera uploads in
dropbox?

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elwell
Nice scroll animation.

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baby
"This app requires a camera flash". Why :( ?

~~~
flyt
Apple doesn't allow developers to restrict releases to explicit hardware
revisions, so having that requirement keeps out anybody pre-iPhone 4.

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joezydeco
So how the hell do I upload 250GB of photos to them without dying of old age?

~~~
alexkus
Slow and steady.

At 2Mbps upload it's only about 12 days.

~~~
joezydeco
I've never had an upload to _anything_ make it past 4-6 hours without some
kind of hiccup, crash, or 404 from the host, much less 288 hours. And that's
not counting transport errors on my side (I'm on WiMax). Assuming Dropbox can
recover from partial uploads, I'd still expect an entire month or longer to
get it all uploaded.

Now what happens if it's a terabyte? I'm supposed to saturate my upstream for
3-4 months?

~~~
smtddr
Wait... this isn't one giant terabyte zip file we're talking about right? This
is a bunch of 3 - 5MB jpgs, some 75MB-300MB video files? That accurately
describes the media I have starting from 3 years ago when my daughter was
born.

A failed upload only interrupts the file currently being uploaded, not the
previously successful ones.

~~~
joezydeco
Agreed. "Assuming Dropbox can recover from partial uploads" meaning Dropbox
can pick up where the upload stopped and keep going. But let's say it's halted
at 99%, if Dropbox has to re-check every single file from the start to see if
it's in sync, then there's gonna be a penalty there too.

~~~
rsanders
Syncing files is pretty much Dropbox's core business. Of all the things to
worry about them getting right, that one wouldn't concern me.

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Polarity
What a innovation. Share you´re photos. Sorry but cancled my account some
months ago and switched to btsync and a local hoster. But yea, nice
appleishstartup video with the typical funny guitar thing.

