Google 2 step verification with PicsPro for Picasa

By default, PicsPro for Picasa uses the Google accounts and the authentication mechanism of the phone.
However, if you enabled "2-step verification" to your Google account, things can get a bit more complicated.

Here are two ways to use an account with 2-step verification in PicsPro.

Option 1: Using a "built-in" account

In the Web Albums section, press Refresh in the top-right menu
The Android OS will show the screen below. Press "Try again".

You will be prompted to re-type your password. Use your normal Google password and press the

"Sign in" button.

Android will not be able to authenticate yet due to the 2-factor verification and it will show the screen below. Press "Next".

You will receive a verification code through SMS. Enter this code in the screen below and press "Next".

From now on, your Google account will work properly with PicsPro for Picasa.

Option 2: Using a non built-in account

In PicsPro, go to the app's Settings -> Accounts and deactivate the "Use phone's accounts" option.

You will be presented with the regular Google login screen. Type your email and password and press "Sign in".

Google will send you a verification code by SMS. Enter it in the next screen.

Google will prompt you to allow PicsPro to access your photos. Press "Accept".

And that's it! From now on, you can use your 2-step verification account with PicsPro for Picasa.

Major Change in Flickr API

Very Important Announcement for all Flickr Mobile Users

Starting June 27, Yahoo will roll out a major change in their Flickr API.
To make sure your copy of Flickr Mobile still works after that date, please make sure you upgrade to version 1.3.1 or newer.

Here is the original announcement from Yahoo: http://code.flickr.net/2014/04/30/flickr-api-going-ssl-only-on-june-27th-2014/ .

EXIF info in Flickr Mobile 1.2.3

Starting with version 1.2.3, Flickr Mobile displays EXIF details in the "photo info" view:

Scroll down and you will see all the EXIF tags provided by Flickr for the current photo:

In some cases, ex: videos, the EXIF info may not be available. Also, some Flickr users may choose to keep their EXIF info private - in this case, nothing will be shown in the EXIF section.

Other changes in this release:

• You can add the author of the current photo as a contact - also from the Info view:

• The thumbnail rendering has been optimized to show larger thumbnails on xhdpi devices like Motorola's Moto G:

Recent Activity and Collection Support in Flickr Mobile 1.1.5

Starting with version 1.1.5, Flick Mobile includes two new sections: Collections and Activity.

A collection usually contains photosets and it may come in handy when you have a lot of them.
For more details, please see this help article from Yahoo.

Flickr Mobile allows viewing existing collections and their contents, editing a collection's title and description, deleting an existing collection as well as regenerating the collection's icon. (The icon is actually a mosaic composed of various photos in the contained photosets.)

Please note that deleting a collection will not delete the contained photosets.

You can add an existing photoset to a collection in the Photosets section, by tapping on the context menu and choosing Add to collection.

In the Activity section, you can see the most recent comments and faves on your photos, photosets and galleries.

There are many context menus throughout this section, offering various options like viewing the comment author's Flickr content, or adding the comment author as a contact.

If this section shows too many (or not enough) comments, you can change the time interval by tapping on the funnel icon in the top-right.

Finally, we improved the styling throughout the app, using Google's "cards" UI pattern, as seen in the Google Music app, as well as in Google Play.

Enjoy!

Note: This has been published as a staged rollout and it may take a day or so before it becomes available in all geographical regions.

Contact Info in Flickr Mobile

Starting with version 1.0.5, you can use the "Info" option in the "Contacts" section to change their status, ex.: "Friend" and/or "Family".

Video support in Flickr Mobile

Starting with version 0.9.5, we added video support in Flickr Mobile.
You can:

• Play any online video (if your Android device support that particular format)
• Download any online video. The downloaded videos will be visible in the Gallery app (and any photography app supporting videos)
• Upload your local videos to Flickr. Please note that some 3GP video files recorded on Nexus devices may not be recognized by Flickr. MPEG/MP4 video uploads seem to work without problems.

In thumbnail view, you can differentiate the videos by looking for the the usual "Play" icon.

You can download Flickr Mobile from:

• Google Play
• Amazon App Store

New main screen design in Picasa Mobile 3.5.4

Starting with version 3..5.4, Picasa Mobile allows you to choose between two main screen designs: "Classic" and "Colorful".

You can switch between the two designs by going to Settings -> Main menu theme:



Here are the two designs side-by-side:

It would be extremely useful to know which one you like best, so please do not hesitate to leave your feedback here.

So, which design looks better?

Other enhancements in this release:

• Added 2048 px resize before upload. This is only available for devices running Android 4.0 and above and should be considered experimental.
• Fixed random crash when user exits a long loading task.

Set as wallpaper, web image sharing, ancestral navigation in Picasa Mobile 3.5.0

We just published a new version of Picasa Mobile, 3.5.0, which adds the following new features: setting photos as wallpaper, ancestral navigation and more web photo sharing option.
We also fixed a bug occurring sometimes when deleting the last photo in an album, in full-screen mode.

Setting photos as wallpaper

You can set any photo as your Android devices' wallpaper, including your online photos, your local photos, your contacts' photos, as well as any photos displayed in the Search section.
The option is available from the full-screen mode, as illustrated below:

Please note that Android will crop your photo slightly, to allow for the "slide" effect when moving from one home screen to the next.

Ancestral navigation

Ancestral navigation is just a fancy term for the "Up" button introduced starting with Android 3.0.
When pressing the "Up" button (see highlighted in blue below, in top-left), the app will go to the previous screen in the screen hierarchy.

More web photo sharing options

Picasa Mobile 3.5.1 adds the "Share image" option, complementing the existing "Email image" option.

You can access this option either from the thumbnail view, by long-pressing on a thumbnail, or from the full screen view, by using the options menu.

Set as album cover - not available in Google's Picasa Web API
We also tried to implement "set photo as album cover" - unfortunately this operation is not available in Google's Picasa Web API. Hopefully, they will make it available at a later time.
More details on this issue at the address below:
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/google-picasa-data-api/DhWZYUGfa2w

Bug fixes

We also fixed a bug occurring from time to time when deleting the last photo in a web album, in full screen mode.

Local Media improvements in Picasa Mobile 3.1.6

A new Picasa Mobile release, 3.1.6, has just been published to Google's Play Store.

The highlights of this version:

• A nicer UI for the Local Media section, including local album thumbnails and photo counts
• The "Yesterday" option, when grouping local media by date
• A few sorting (ordering) options in the thumbnail views:
• Sorting by date (ascending or descending)
• Sorting by file name  (ascending or descending)

Thumbnails and photo counts, when grouped by date

Thumbnails and photo counts, when grouped by folder

The sorting option, in the options menu

Various sorting orders

Optional resizing before upload in Picasa Mobile

A new version of Picasa Mobile, 3.1.5, has just been released. The highlights of this update:

• Optional resizing of photos before upload. This can be enabled from Settings -> Uploads -> Resizing, as shown in the screenshots below. When resizing is activated, the available photo sizes are 1280, 1024 and 800 pixels. This means that the photos will be scaled down to have the largest edge equal to the selected size, while preserving the aspect ratio. (Note: if a photo is smaller than the selected size, no scaling will be applied.)
• We fixed an issue in the embedded camera  occurring on some low-end devices when the application would go into pause mode.

"Select All" button and improved zoom

We have just released a new version of Picasa Mobile, 3.1.2, including the following new features / improvements:

• We added a "Select all" button when uploading local photos (see screenshot at the end of the post)
• We improved the zooming and panning functionality

For a long time, we tried to resist to the idea of a "Select all" button in upload mode. This was mainly in order to avoid very long and bandwith-intensive upload operations. In other words, to protect the users from themselves...

However, due to the overwhelming demand, we finally caved in and added the long-awaited "Select all" button. We can only hope that you will use it wisely...

To be on the safe side, we also built in some protections mechanisms: "select all" will not select more than 1000 photos and the user will be warned and prompted to confirm before starting heavy uploads. 

Upload/download queue management in Picasa Mobile 3.1.0

Starting with Picasa Mobile 3.1.0, users have now the option of viewing the pending items in the upload/download queue.
For this purpose, we added two queue management screens that can be accessed by dragging-down the upload or download notification icon and then tapping on the notification text, as shown in the screenshots below.

Larger Thumbnails (optional)

We just published a new version of Picasa Mobile, 3.0.7. The major highlight of this version is allowing the users to see larger thumbnails.
This option can be activated from Settings -> Photo Browsing -> Viewing, as shown below.

Picasa Mobile now includes a Quick Launch widget

We have just published a major release of Picasa Mobile, version 3.0.1, which includes a Quick Launch widget.
On most Android models, to add the widget to one of your home screens, you have to do the following:

• Long press on the targeted home screen
• From the context menu that appears, select "Widgets"
• Find the "Picasa Mobile Quick Launch" widget and tap on it. This will add the widget to your home screen.

Please note that on some Honeycomb and ICS models, the widget may not appear right-away in the list of available widgets. If you encounter this issue, all you need to to is a fast reboot of your device.

Please note that the widget will not work if you move the app to the SD Card (this is an Android limitation).

Many thanks to Steven and James for suggesting this enhancement!

Optional hiding of Google+ and Blogger albums

We have just released a new version of Picasa Mobile, 2.8.4, with some more optional features:

• Optional hiding of albums created by Google+ and Blogger. This can be activated from Settings - Photo Browsing - Viewing - Hide Google+ albums.
• Optional prompting for target album before manual uploads. This can be activated from Settings - Uploads - Manual uploads - Prompt for album.

Also, the Prompt for caption setting has been split into two: one for the embedded camera and one for manual uploads. Starting with this version, Prompt for caption also applies to batch uploads (if entered, all photos in a batch will share the same caption).

Picasa Mobile 2.8.2 is now availble

We just published a new version of Picasa Mobile, 2.8.2. Among the highlights of the new version:

•  Local media grouping by folder (optional)
• "About" screen 
• Non-uploaded local photo filter 
• Smoother scrolling for local media

Thumbnail refresh in Picasa Mobile

We just published a new version of Picasa Mobile, 2.7.7, which includes a "Rescan" feature for the local media.
When used, the "rescan" feature will force the Android OS to create new thumbnails for the selected photos.
This was needed because, in certain situations, some thumbnails generated by Android are getting out of sync with their corresponding photos.

A more technical explanation: if the thumbnail information is not properly deleted when deleting a photo, Android OS reuses the thumbnail IDs (instead of generating new ones). Then, when taking a new photo, Android "thinks" that the thumbnail already exists for that photo and it inadvertently reuses the thumbnail of a deleted photo.

Many thanks to Corin for reporting the issue.

Picasa Mobile 2.0 Is Now Live!

As mentioned in an earlier post, a major release of Picasa Mobile for Android is now available for download from the Google Android Market.

The main highlights of this new version:

• Social features:
• Public Picasa photo search
• View public Picasa albums of your contacts
• Invite your friends to see your albums with one click, from within the app
• Web album visibility editing
• French, Spanish, Italian and German translations
• Improved overall performance and stability

Stay tuned for more highlights and new features! As usual, all the updates are free, always!

Working on Picasa Mobile 2.0

As some of you may have noticed, we slowed a bit the pace of new releases. That is because we are working hard on the version 2.0 of Picasa Mobile, which we expect to become available towards the beginning of July.
This major release would include lots of performance improvements, as well as some social features.
Stay tuned!

Feedback, Please!

A month has passed since we released Picasa Mobile and we have well over 200 downloads. One of the most challenging things so far has been getting user feedback.

Like with any other consumer product, knowing what the user expects from it, how he/she uses it and what other features they would like are essential ingredients in creating a successful app.

So far, we have been pretty quick in responding to our users' queries, and our above average rating reflects it.

We were told that browsing through a lot of local pictures may be a problem, so we implemented a time filter.

We were asked for camera key support and we implemented it as of version 1.0.9.
We were told the some phones don't have a physical SD card (see LG-P999 G2x) and, starting with version 1.1.2, we adapted Picasa Mobile to use emulated SD cards.

But we are sure that the items above are just the tip of the iceberg. So please, send us your feedback so we can continue to improve Picasa Mobile. And rest assured that any upgrade will always be free.