System/App suggestions

[Wolfie]

I posted this in the Android app forum but i will echo it here as well.

1. Visible Upload Que.
The app needs a visible upload que. An icon in the corner of the image doesn't cut it. Once you have set a photo to uplaod somewhere, there is nothing to indicate where its going and what order they are being uploaded in. The app needs a pulldown to see the list of photos and where they are headed to. There also needs to be a cancel option to stop the upload or remove it from the que. I would also like to be able to move a photo up/down in the que in the event I want one before I want the others.

2. The upload que seems to fire at very random times.
Sometimes it will grab the photos off the EyeFi and then send them shortly there after or sometimes it will be 20 minutes later. There needs to be a "Start Uploads" manual button to force start them. I still don't know if I need to be running the EyeFi app in the foreground for it to send or if they will go on their own as a background service. Its really unclear as to WHEN the que will process or what triggers it.

3. The app/system needs a file rename ability.
It would be nice to have that in the app so it can be changed on the fly. This would be really useful for images being resized.

4. Enable media filtering.
Its primitive at best. I would like to be able to filter out all but the images from the EyeFi (and NOT include phone camera images OR any other of the media I have on the phone). I am thinking 3 checkboxes "X Show All Media", "X Show Phone Camera Media", and "X Show EyeFi Media".

5. Photo Grouping:
It would be nice to have photos grouped by date with headers in the app. I would also like the ability to sort ascending or descending date. I would also like to have RAW, video and Jpeg split up into groups (or optionally so via settings).

6. Upload Prefernces by filetype:
I would like to be able to set upload preferences on a per filetype basis instead of global. Ie, I am ok uploading jpgs through 3g but I would prefer to have the app wait for a wifi connect to send raw or video. I could see this option something that those without unlimited data could get onboard with real fast.

7. Allow/Disallow Upload on Insecure WiFi:
We need a setting that would only send photos on secure or allow insecure(selectable) Wifi networks.

In general overall, I am looking for the ability to control the flow of images better. I would like to ship jpegs right away on 3g. I would like to hold raw and video until I get a secure wifi. I would like to shove an image to the top of the que and to be able to see the que. Really its all about user control.

[MikeV]

I'll preface this with "I'm not an Eye-Fi employee", but I've had their cards for a couple years now and over the time I've gotten a pretty good grasp on what should be and is/isn't possible with the way they work, so I'll make a quick run through your list.

1. This might be possible, but I wouldn't expect it to be added. If you were to go out for a day, shoot 50+ pictures, then come back home, it would take some time for the card to generate a visible upload queue and send it to the computer with thumbnails of each picture. That's valuable time that could instead be used to send the actual full-resolution pictures. And if you happened to take a picture while it was in the middle of generating that queue, it would need to stop that process to allow the camera to write the new picture, then start it all over again. A simpler method would be to just send a list of the filenames, that way the software knows what it should be expecting to receive... though I don't know if or how well this would work for mobile devices.

2. While I'll agree that sometimes the upload process can have its issues, be it in terms of timing, speed, or order of the media, I don't think there would be any way to have a "Start Uploads" button to manually kick off the process. The process is initiated by the card itself, not by the Eye-Fi software on the computer or device, so having a button wouldn't accomplish anything... unless it was only activated once the card has connected to the wireless network and told the computer/device that it is ready to send. But at that point I'd rather it just start uploading, rather than make me click a button.

3. If you're referring to the mobile apps for iOS and/or Android, this may be a limitation of the device's operating system. Pictures sent from the card directly to the computer have the same filename as they have on the memory card... iOS automatically assigns its own filenames, so pictures going from the iOS app anywhere will have a different filename. I don't know exactly how the Android app handles filenames.

4 and 5. These sound like they're aimed at the mobile app... and I'm pretty sure that the media library is dependent on the device OS. The only way for Eye-Fi to have more control over this would be to have its own media library for the app, and then have some kind of export capability to get it from the app to the device's media library so you can do things like set wallpaper, email/mms, etc. It's kinda redundant for them to duplicate the functionality, so I wouldn't expect these to become a reality anytime soon.

6. A great suggestion... I'm sure that Eye-Fi could have some way to do this in a future version if they wanted... have a screen with Upload to Computer settings... list each format, and allow selecting whether it transfers via 3G/WiFi or WiFi only.

7. Is this one between card and computer/device, or mobile device to computer? The latter may not be possible... it would depend on if the device OS provides that amount of information to apps. The former will depend on whether the open network was configured on the card by the user, or if it was connected to via the Hotspot feature. If configured by the user, there is the assumption that the network is trusted, since the user manually added the network to the card. If connected via the hotspot feature, there is a layer of security built into the upload process that is applied by the card.

[Wolfie]

I think you are focusing on the PC centric point of view. I titled it System/App suggestions. By titling it that way and also mentioning I posted it in the android forums I had thought that would have been sufficient to indicate I was referring to iOS or ANDROID phone APPs, not PC applications (though app is short for application, its rare to refer to a PC application as an "app"). Perhaps not.

1. Once the ANDROID app gets the images from the EyeFi, it THEN begins sending them to the internet. THAT is the que I am talking about. NOT the que coming in from the EyeFi. From my limited experience, the EyeFi Card transmits all images to the phone. The phone then disconnects from the EyeFi and then begins sending the images to the internet via 3g/4g/wifi. Its that later stage where I wish to see the que.

2. From the APP point of view, a button is very easy to do and its the que and uploading to the internet, not between the app and the EyeFi card that I wish a "Start Upload" button.

3. In LightRoom. I have the flickr exporter set to tag the export like DSC_0000_flikr.jpg. In my EyeFi settings, I have 2 FTP portals set up, one that resizes to 1024, the other to 640. I would like it to tag the photos DSC_0000_640.jpg when it FTPs them up. It currently doesn't do that.

4 and 5 ARE aimed at the mobile APP. It already has an option to ignore all media OTHER than the phone camera images/video. I would also like to see the ability to ignore the phone camera TOO. I really only want to process the EyeFi Images in the EyeFi APP. If I want to deal with the phone camera images, I can use the stock android app for doing so (not likely since I rarely use the phone camera). I can see people wanting the phone camera images integrated with the EyeFi app so I wouldn't like to see that functionality removed, only enabled/disabled.

6. I think you got what I meant on that one!

7. Again I was focusing on the mobile APP. If I walk into a Starbucks (no I really wouldn't but lets just say), its an insecure WiFi. I would like the APP to NOT use it even though the phone did connect to it. I may not want to have my photos flying out to everyone there with a packet sniffer.

In nearly every case when I refer to a "setting" I am referring to pressing the "Settings" button on my ANDROID phone and selecting settings from the popup. I am NOT talking about settings in the PC, the EyeFi card, or any website.