"Shutter" App from StreamNation Tries to Fix the Cloud Problem

Streamnation, a media storage and playback solution, has always sought to fix the problems with the current paradigms in the cloud space. Expensive and limited, there is a lot to improve on. As part of that vision, they have released a new app called Shutter that is aimed at replacing the camera on your iPhone by building-in automatic and unlimited cloud storage.

Shutter offers unlimited sharing over most social networks with no size restrictions, many additional filter choices, album management, and background upload. StreamNation describes Shutter's place in the market as such:

Until now, on-device camera rolls and cloud-based storage systems have operated independently, forcing users to manage their media storage and creating headaches in the process. People typically shoot photos and videos, discover they’re out of storage, and are forced to manually delete files to create space before they can add anything new. Shutter solves this problem via a new camera app that automatically syncs with an unlimited cloud storage locker, ensuring that everyone always has plenty of space available to shoot new photos and videos.

The CEO of StreamNation further described the problem of the current system as partially Apple's fault (which I agree with). Many app developers are asked to create an app that can store photos and then delete the images off an iPhone's camera roll to save physical space on the device. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't allow this. "Indeed, the problem number one for mobile users is the limited storage of their device. Alas, Apple blocked the access to the media library from 3rd party apps. So we’ve decided to leverage our platform and work on a dedicated app for mobile which will let you take photos and videos without thinking about your storage again. The app uploads your photos and videos to your StreamNation account and just keeps locally your last 200 photos (users can set this number in the app). You can then share those photos and videos on Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp…. you name it. And why would you pay for storing your mobile photos when it’s free on Facebook for instance? So Shutter comes with unlimited free storage. It’s a fair deal isn’t it?"

Shutter is 100% free and all the infinite storage is free too. That's pretty awesome and makes me wonder why I would pay for DropBox or continue to pay for Box (I probably won't).

I've had a few weeks with the new app that has launched today, and it does exactly what StreamNation claims. It works well and even addresses problems many have struggled with: speed. With most apps that include any type of upload aspect, including Instagram and Facebook Camera, taking photos fast is not common. This is normally because the phone memory can't handle running the camera taking aspect and the upload queue simultaneously. It doesn't take long for the app to crash. I'm not sure how StreamNation is doing it, but it's likely separating the two aspects, allowing the phone to take photos and only uploading the images once you are finished. What this means is a fast photo-taking app, but a slower cloud upload solution. For an app like Shutter, getting my photos to the cloud immediately is not important, since it is basically a backup solution, not really a sharing platform, therefore I'm satisfied with Shutter's functionality and flow.

Sharing images from Shutter works much the same as you would expect from DropBox or Box. Just select an image or set of images and you can generate a sharing link that you can then send to anyone.

You can also share content from StreamNation.com, where all the Shutter images are stored. Unfortunately, StreamNation.com is a bit sluggish and loads a lot slower than competitors. It's even frozen a few times for me. The app doesn't struggle with this issue, gratefully.

Shutter offers a set of filters you can use over your photos, but I generally ignored them. If I want to add filters to my photos, I'll use Instagram. The filters were much like the ones built into the iPhone's native phone and act destructively.

The biggest hump for Shutter is that it only works perfectly when you use Shutter as your camera and not your iPhone's camera. Though you can still shoot with your iPhone and the photos will upload if you open Shutter (like DropBox or Box), this doesn't really separate the solutions in a compelling way. In my experience, people stay with what's comfortable and rarely change their ways unless it's impossible to ignore a better way. Perhaps infinite cloud storage for free is enough to change people's habits.

You can try out Shutter for yourself if you have an iPhone, but it's not yet ready for Android which they promise is coming soon.

UPDATE:

Shutter has released further information regarding their unlimited plan.

Welcome all Shutter users! We'd like to clear up any confusion around Shutter's unlimited storage -- yes, storage is indeed unlimited. The settings section of the app stills shows 5GB because when we initially posted the app in the App Store for review, the objective was to start with 5GB of free storage and switch to unlimited when you invite 5 friends. After the App Store accepted Shutter, we decided to remove this limit and activate all users to unlimited. Yay! We’ve posted the fix to the App Store so the copy should be updated soon to read unlimited. We'll relay this update to all our users and new users today via email as well.