A farewell to Everpix and a search for image backup and viewing

A few months ago I signed up for Everpix. In case you have not heard of it, Everpix is (or rather, was) a photo backup website. It had some pretty awesome things going for it, namely:

• A desktop client that integrates with iPhoto, Aperture, and disk folders that uploads your pictures to the cloud
• An iOS client that:
  • If enabled, will also upload your cameraphone’s pictures to the cloud
  • Quickly view all of your backed up pictures
• Similar browsing on the website.
• Optional daily emails (or a screen on the iOS app and website) that show you a sort of “this day in history.”

For my picture workflow, it was perfect. I use Dropbox to push my pictures from the iPhone into Aperture because I don’t trust Photo Stream. See also: “How I got screwed by Photo Stream and Aperture.” Everpix stayed out of the way, backed up my Aperture library to the cloud, and had the bonus of letting me browse through the library as quickly and easily as a Flickr client without having to keep all those photos on my phone.

Unfortunately, Everpix’s business model did not work out. They ran out of funding in the face of looming website bills.

Now that I have had a few months getting used to how great a photo backup service could be, I’m left scrambling to find an equivalent alternative. I griped about the situation a couple of days ago on Twitter/Facebook and got a couple of responses, but nothing too promising.

Dropbox ● Dropbox came up a few times in conversation. I do find Dropbox to be an acceptable tool, but my 110GB Aperture library would require the $20/month plan. Everpix was $5/month. My Amazon S3 backup (via Arq) of all my music, photos, and documents (about 400GB) is about $8/month. Dropbox isn’t cost-effective as a backup solution. You’re paying for the syncing. The Dropbox iPhone client wouldn’t be able see into my Aperture library and let me browse photos the same as Everpix.

Flickr (or similar) ● I have a Flickr account. I even occasionally upload from Aperture into Flickr. The iOS client is pretty decent. My main problem with backing up to Flickr is that I haven’t found a good way to quietly upload photos unattended. In other words, I haven’t found a Flickr “backup client.” The built-in Flickr integration inside of Aperture is laughably bad to the point of being nonfunctional. I have had good success publishing to Flickr using Connected Flow’s FlickrExport for Aperture, but it’s a manual process. In fact, I’ve already proven to myself how well the manual process works. The last photoset I uploaded was in May. I’ve taken just under 700 photos since May. If a manual step is involved, then backups aren’t going to happen.

A handful of iOS-to-cloud backup apps ● My problem with most of the iOS-based backup apps is that they do a great job pushing your cameraphone to the cloud, but my iPhone is not where my photos live. They temporarily live there as they transition over to Aperture, but my desktop Aperture library is the canonical home of my photos. The pictures do not strictly come in from my phone. Every few months I’ll get DVDs of RAW photos from DSLR cameras — photo shoots of Kim’s products. Those don’t come anywhere near the cameraphone in the workflow. They go directly to Aperture and need to be backed up as such.

Loom ● Josh Bancroft had mentioned Loom, which looks promising, at least upon initial glance. It feels like an Everpix clone, though hopefully they’ve worked out the business model. The dealbreaker here is that they only support iPhoto on the desktop. They do not support Aperture libraries, which means they won’t work for me.

Picturelife ● Picturelife looks like another service similar to Everpix. They’re more spendy than both Everpix was and Loom is, but they integrate with Aperture and seem to have a similar feature set. Picturelife certainly looks promising.

Conclusion

I will give Picturelife a try, but it will take some time to properly assess. Do you have suggestions?

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