App Of The Day: Photovine

Google's photo-sharing app for iPhone opens up to all.

Photo-sharing is a big part of the mobile apps for Google+, the recently-launched social network from Google. There's a specific feature for uploading and sharing photos from an iPhone or Android handset. However, that hasn't stopped Google from launching an entirely separate photo-sharing app called Photovine.

Available on iPhone initially, it's the work of Slide, the social applications startup acquired by Google last year. Its key idea: images are grouped around single, shared captions: examples on its App Store screenshots include 'Some Of My Best Friends', 'Me And Someone Famous' and 'Four Eyes Are Better Than Two'.

Users are encouraged to add their photos to existing vines, or create their own, adding notes and connecting to friends from Twitter and Facebook. The app can post photos to those social services too.

Photovine's iPhone app was actually released in mid-July, but it was invite-only. This week, Google has opened the service up to all: people can sign up within the app and get posting.

Will Photovine be popular? Much depends on how Google promotes it: we wonder whether a few months down the line, any successful features will be rolled back into the main Google+ app instead. There is also no shortage of competition from buzzy photo startups, with Instagram one of the most popular, but the likes of Path, Picplz, Color and others all competing for space on iPhone users' homescreens.