Loom's next step in image management: joining with Dropbox

Last week was a big week for Dropbox, with the unveiling of its 'Home for Life' project, the introduction of Carousel, and the appointment of new board members. This week, its expansion continues as it adds photo storage and systematisation app Loom to its family of purchases. Loom is an app that we've featured a few times here on Photocritic. It's a stylish interface that allows you to keep track of photos taken on different devices in one place. I've used it as a repository for my mobile photos because of its easy auto-upload feature. Now, unless I request a zip file of my data, they're all going to be switched to Dropbox.

What impact will this have on Loom customers, or potential customers?

• No more new enrollments are being accepted. If you were thinking of signing up but hadn't done so yet, sorry, you're too late
• Existing users will be able to use Loom until 16 May 2014
• There should follow a seamless transfer of data from Loom to Dropbox, with further instructions coming by email
• Customers who wish to switch to Carousel will receive the same amount of free space that they had on Loom on Dropbox, forever. Paid users will receive the same quota on Carousel/Dropbox for free, for an entire year
• For those Loom users who don't want to make the switch to Dropbox, a zip file of their entire libraries, including albums, can be requested.

If you were someone who was using Dropbox and Loom in tandem to store and organise images (one as your primary source and the other as a back-up, for example) it's a bit of a bugger, really.

In an email to Loom users, the team stated that: 'We know this is a big deal. This decision was made with great care. We have worked hard on our product and feel that our vision aligns perfectly with Dropbox’s vision for Carousel.' Maybe it was a case of converging ideals, or perhaps it was a case of a graceful surrender rather than a bloody fight to the death, but the merger is indicative of what an interesting and brutal battleground the cloud space is right now. The Big Guys are taking image hosting, storage, and sharing seriously with Google+, Flickr, and Amazon Cloud Drive offering increasingly desirable packages. The Little Guys are having to find ways to differentiate themselves and preserve their markets before they go the way of Everpix.

Video comes to photo storage app Loom

I've been a fan of Loom since since I tried out its public beta version earlier this year. It's a photo storage service that allows you to access your images across all of your devices as well as auto-upload them to take some of the strain off of keeping your back-ups secure. It's easy to use and looks good, too. Today they've released their biggest update to date, which will allow users to play and stream videos on their iPhones, iPads, and from the website. The process that their developers have implemented lets users watch their videos almost automatically without any of that pesky buffering. As soon as you press 'play' it starts to stream the lowest quality version of the recording while simultaneously buffering the higher quality one and switching to that as soon as your Internet cnnection and screen resolution lets you. Yes, it's similar to the system that Netflix uses.

They've made a pretty video to show it off, too:

Loom already gives you 5GB of storage for free; 50GB costs $39.99 for a year, or $99.99 buys 250GB of storage for a year. However, if you refer your family and friends to Loom you can pick up an extra 5GB for free.

Yes, Loom is only iOS-only at the moment, but Android expansion is planned. Let's hope that's Loom's next major update and it comes along quickly!

Loom weaves together your photos from multiple devices into one place

For a little while now I've been testing out the public beta version of Loom, an online photo library that is synchronised across my different devices. In all, I've been rather impressed by what I've seen and given it left public beta today and now anyone can sign up for a Loom account, it only seemed fair to share. With so many cloud storage options available, why would you want to sign up for Loom? From its developers' perspective: 'We’re making it quick and easy for you to access and manage your entire photo and video library on every device, without taking up local storage space.' The idea is that whatever device you used to take a photo and wherever it has been stored and developed initially, you can bring it into Loom's weave and have it accessible and identifiable wherever you are and whether you're on your iPhone or sitting at your Mac. Then you can share it, if you want, via email or message.

From a user's perspective, it does what the founders intended: makes it easy for you to look at all of your images in one place.

Install Loom on your iPhone and when you first log in you'll be asked if you want to transfer your entire camera roll to your Loom library. I clicked 'Yes'; it took a while, but it transfered the lot. Now, every time that I open Loom it copies my new images and videos over from my camera roll to Loom. By selecting the 'Nonstop upload' option in settings, it enables uploading even if you close the app. Useful when you need to shift large numbers of photos in one sitting.

If you install the Loom uploader on your Mac you can use it to hunt down the photos on your internal or external hard drive, be they JPEGs or Raw, and back them up to the cloud. The Loom team reckons that it can support over 130 different types of Raw file, but if you find one that won't trip the light fantastic, let them know and they'll try to fix it.

All of your images will appear in your timeline, but you also have the ability to file them according to whatever Byzantine or idiosyncratic method you prefer. If you delete a photo from your local drive or your phone, it'll still be there in Loom. This has allowed me to free up significant space on my iPhone, precisely what the Loom team intended. (Yes, the photos are backed up somewhere else, too!)

At present, Loom is iPhone-, iPad-, and Mac-only; however, there are plans to widen its access in due course. The team is very keen to hear what its users want from the service, too. As well as opening itself up to public subscriptions, which might generate it some income, it has also received $1.4 million in seed funding from sources that include Tencent, Google Ventures with MG Siegler, Great Oaks VC and angel investments including Will Smith (Overbrook Entertainment), and Damon Way (founder of DC Shoes).

Your first 5GB of storage comes free; after that there's a 50GB option that costs $39.99 for the year or you can pay $99.99 for a year of 250GB storage. You've nothing to lose by checking it out.