Anyone try the paid app that is for posting photos? It looks to me to be a viable replacement to Instagram without the Facebook baggage and loss of privacy.
It’s getting some really good write ups. The question for me is whether it can get enough people to sign up at $45 a year.
I can’t decide whether to join or not.
1 Like
I’m number 3785. I’m going to be more keen about better photography when the wife and I upgrade our phones this year. The distraction free interface sounds great …i’d like to see good sharing options as well.
1 Like
I’ve signed up, but there are significant overlaps with another service I use, micro.blog.
The quality of the photography on Glass so far has been excellent though. I’m amazed that Flickr hasn’t been able to achieve something like this, given their massive headstart.
3 Likes
It’s a really polished app already. I love that the focus is on photos and not number of likes or followers. In fact, you can only leave comments so it encourages a sense of community.
Edit: I have 3 invites if anyone is interested in joining Glass.
2 Likes
It’s a beautiful app. Myself and my wife have already switched over. No more Facebook owned companies for us. It’s glorious.
1 Like
https://500px.com has been providing a similar service for years, with a free tier.
Does anyone remember the pay to use competitor with Twitter from years ago? I don’t remember what was called…but it’s long gone.
1 Like
You convinced me to sign up @anon20961960, my handle is @geoff-airey, anyone else a member and wants to share their username?
1 Like
The podcast is The Talk Show with John Gruber. I think it’s ok to say that here. The moderators will correct me if not.
Gotta admit: I almost deleted the episode unlistened to, thinking, “Another photo sharing app? It’ll never work!”
It’s not a replacement for Instagram, because all your friends and family are on Instagram. They’re not on Glass, and they never will be.
However, from the podcast, I learn Glass is a place for photo pros and serious amateurs to share photos and tips. And a serious amateur can just be anybody who would like to take nicer photos, even if they’re just using their phone. (Same as how a Mac Power User is anybody who wants to use their Apple gear more effectively.)
I bought a Nikon D3500 and a couple of lenses for an African safari trip my wife and I took in 2019. I used it heavily there, taking literally hundreds of photos a day … and have barely used it since. The podcast makes me think I might like to pick it up again, and start sharing photos to Glass.
3 Likes
I did not post the code either, partly because I agree with your decision. If people want the code, they should listen to the episode.
Also, I can’t remember the code. 
2 Likes
Can anyone who’s a Glass member confirm whether the iPad app is available on M1 Macs please?
I’ve not joined Glass but early on it struck me as something that would not last and I still have doubts. Just observing from the outside it seems like the sort of thing that got some early traction in the Apple community, a jump on the cool new thing sort of thing. From the casual onlooker perspective my initial thoughts/critique was, why not Flickr? I don’t actively use Instagram or Flickr as much as I used to but if I were interested in more serious photography in the way that Glass seems to offer itself, I’d just go back to Flickr. I just logged in again and after a few minutes looking around I still see many of my old contacts perusing their photography in a serious way. It reflects my memory that Flickr was the place for serious amateurs/semi-pros. But it’s also open and assessable on the web to any platform with excellent apps. The pro plan is a bit more expensive than Glass but comes with quite a few side benefits that come with membership. And it’s got a decent free plan.
When I last used it regularly my experience was that it was a very positive community. My guess is that Flickr is sort of the old thing whereas Glass is the new shiny.
1 Like
It’s down to $29.99 / yr. which for whatever reasons feels much cheaper than $45.
2 Likes
According to the Talk Show interview, Glass is intentionally avoiding a free tier to keep out the trolls and spammers.
If the goal is growing the community then, as you say, this strategy is disastrous. However, if the goal is simply to make the community healthy and financially self-sustainable, then it might work.
3 Likes
I too used to be on Flickr, but I felt that the community gradually died as various experiments were tried to monetise it.
I think that Glass is great value for the £26 a year for a linear timeline and some absolutely excellent photography. I think that the difference is that people are uploading a few of their best photos on a regular basis, rather than the whole contents of an SD card as used to happen with some people on Flickr.
2 Likes
I disagree with that statement, it all depends on the level you want to grow to and your intended Audience.
If you take them at face value, It sounds like (From The Talk Show interview) that they’re making good money on subs so far that they’ve been able to drop the price (of course they may also be struggling to get people interested at almost twice the price). They don’t seem to be chasing exponential growth and flip the company to a buyer, more in it for the long haul.
2 Likes
does this work on M1 macs?