Tag Archives: photo transfer

Google Discontinues ‘Bump to Transfer Photos’

A magical app in the early of the iPhone called Bump gave us the ability to bump two iPhones together and transfer contact information. It was a nifty solution to handle the lack of IR transfer between devices that earlier PDAs had. After a while, the app advanced to more things to bump transfer between phones, the most popular in my circles was photos.

The bump action was basically a moment in time that the app could use to match the two phones together then wirelessly transfer what was being asked of it. Photo transfer didn’t require a Web site, social app, or anything more than two people with their phones, the app, the photo and the desire to share.
bump still going strong
The company producing Bump offered methods for other developers to use their technology in their apps to transfer information beyond what the Bump app did. The group also created a social photo sharing service called Flock.

Last September, 2013, Bump announced they had been purchased by Google. No claims where made, but the hope had been that we would find the Bump action in the many other Google offerings. Naturally, Google would want that additional data point of the phones and files transferred. Sadly, they didn’t agree with this thinking and according to the Bump Web site, the app is being taken down and service will be End-of-Lifed on January 31, 2014.

I can  imagine the horror a developer that was using that technology in their app is going through right now. Like the many other photo sharing/storing solutions that have gone away over the last year, this just adds to the concern about becoming dependent on any service, if they are not making the cash flow they need to, you loose too.
bump end of service

Bump photos from your iPhone to your computer goes official, Open for all to use!

I mentioned earlier about playing with the public beta of Bump’s iPhone to computer photo transfer. It has continued to work well for me. The service works by launching a Bump provided Web site, having my iPhone connected to the internet over Wifi (doesn’t have to be on the same network as the computer), then tap the iPhone to the computer’s space bar. The photo(s) zip from the iPhone to the computer.

The fun has gone official today as Bump is now promoting it through their newest update. The Web address has changed from the one I was using previously, now: photos.bu.mp

If you don’t use Bump, when you launch the app, it starts with your contact info (editable) on the screen so it’s quick to Bump someone else’s iPhone and transfer your information. If you swipe across the screen, the next is the photos overview. You can select one or many photos to transfer to another iPhone or now (officially) your computer. Swipe again to go to a list of contacts that you can choose to Bump to another iPhone if you need to share a person’s name, address, and phone with other people (great around the office).