

Loom (YC W12) Is Building A Better iCloud - ukd1
http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/23/loom-is-building-a-better-icloud/

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jemeshsu
How will Loom upload those photos captured during offline on iPhone? I suppose
Loom will upload the full resolution pictures to their cloud. Since third
party app is not able to do background task unlike Photo
app/Photostream/iCloud, that means Loom app needs to be on in order to perform
the upload? In that case it would not be seamless as I need to consciously
'upload' my photos before I can access them on the web.

~~~
jansen
Yes, we're aware of Apple's restrictions and they make things difficult for
developers. However we have found and applied some tweaks to make the
experience of getting your photos and videos into the cloud easy, transparent
and 'unconscious'. We're also building Loom to be better at browsing, managing
and sending photos than Apple's Photos app - once you use Loom as your primary
photo library, things fall into place.

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ajaymehta
Have been looking for an iPhoto replacement like this for years. Almost
nothing excites me more than getting out of the Apple photo ecosystem...

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will_brown
2 days ago I posted a "ask HN" about what opportunities they thought lay in
the cloud (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5745230>). So it is really
cool to consume this article and see companies figuring it out. I currently
use DropBox to store my iPhone photos, but I could always use more space and
why not one dedicated to my camera roll.

I know I should not nit-pick but I thought it was a nice article except the
following sentence: "Loom, a cloud storage and syncing service that’s like a
better alternative to iCloud." Is it "like a better alternative" or is it "a
better alternative".

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timmes
I'm happy to be an alpha tester from the beginning of Loom. I wasn't a big fan
of iPhoto. The handling haven't felt comfy for me and also the sync sucked at
the beginning (deleting was not possible). So I managed everything by Dropbox.
I was sceptic if Loom can replace my Dropbox-Photo-Upload-Workflow but it
does! The design could be a little bit cooler but upload, sync, space and the
mac & iOS app are quite good developed. So, now I can use my Dropbox for other
things than photos ;))

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ukd1
I was lucky enough to get in the alpha of this; I was super skeptical until I
tried it - it's now replaced iPhoto for me completely...plus I never sync my
phone. Win.

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orangethirty
Discussion from about an hour ago:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5758064>

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ywang0414
I don't ever plug my iPhone into my mac anymore these days after icloud sync
came into existence. My question is, can I use this just on my phone and sync
it with my other iDevices? The great thing about icloud for me is that I take
a picture and never need to worry about when it'll get synced to the cloud.
will Loom be able to run seamlessly in the background like icloud?

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johnrob
How do they upload all the data? An avid photo shooter who uses an iPhone5 can
create a lot of data on a regular basis.

~~~
jansen
Hi, cofounder of Loom here. We upload all of your photos and videos and want
to make that experience as easy and transparent as possible. We have
especially focussed on being able to manage uploads/syncing for a lot of data
since many people have libraries north of ~100GB.

~~~
eyko
Does this mean we will be able to import our existing libraries in a painless
(or at least not too painful) way?

I haven't tried Loom, but from the description it sure sounds like exactly
what I've (we've?) been waiting for...

I don't want this to look like a feature request (wink wink) but if you coud
have a way to sync some collections with other services (flickr in my case,
for example) then you've hit the jackpot...

~~~
jansen
Yes exactly, that's the goal. Both things you mention (seamless
upload/integration of existing libraries and importing your favorite photo
apps) are on top of our list.

~~~
eyko
ok take my money: ££ :)

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Mazer23
Cool. It looks like they're trying to solve a lot of the same problems we are
at Pixite. Unbound is our solution for this:

<http://unboundformac.com/dropbox.html>

I'm interested to see where they go with it and how they approach the problem
differently.

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peterevans
"I'm Bobbin Threadbare. Are you my mother?"

~~~
vanni
[OT] :) My mind too went to that Loom!

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alttab
I'm not a photographer or anything, so take this with a grain of salt: why is
there yet-another-startup tackling the cloud photo "problem"?

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arkonaut
I've actually tried DropBox for photos, and it's actually pretty awful on this
front. Our company just switched from Box to DropBox (because of DB Teams
issues), so I have little reason to stay on DB outside of my photos... Someone
will come along and do this better (and they'll win this space starting mobile
first).

Don't know if the winner will be Loom -- But the "why is there yet-another?"
could've been the exact same question for when DB launched. "...Because people
feel like the problem is still not solved."

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anxman
This shouldn't be too hard to do. The iPhone's marriage to iCloud holds the
phone back.

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dxt78
Well that was awkward..

