In recent years, photo-sharing apps have capitalized on the idea that Instagram is too selective, creating a space for users to share unfiltered photos from their camera rolls. Rocket uses lock screen-based sharing, Retro goes the photo journaling route, and Yope builds Instagram for private groups.
Now, Mayank Vidawatka, co-founder of the Indian social network Koo, which shut down last year after acquisition talks fell through, is releasing a new photo-sharing app called PicSee. The app, released Thursday on both iOS and Android, aims to automatically discover and share photos of your friends in your camera roll without using messaging systems like WhatsApp or Instagram.
Bidawatka said your friends probably have hundreds of photos that you don’t have. Either they forgot to send you those photos or they forgot about those photos. PicSee scans faces in your camera gallery and selects photos of your friends.
“I’ve been thinking about the issue of personal photo sharing for years,” Bidawatka told TechCrunch by phone. “After announcing the closure of Koo last year, we had time to rethink and re-address this issue.”
If your friend uses PicSee, you can send them a share request. If they accept, you will receive the first batch of their photos. The app will then detect new photos in your camera roll and ask you to send them as well.
If you don’t send them right away, the app will automatically send them after 24 hours. Before that, you can review the photos you want to send and choose not to send some. Photos are saved to your device’s local PicSee storage. You can also download it to your device storage. Users can also recall photos after sending. This will remove the image from PicSee on the receiving end.
The company says it has implemented a number of privacy controls. The app does all the processing of identifying faces on your device. The company says an encrypted connection is established when sending photos. Photos are stored on your device and the company doesn’t store anything in the cloud. Bidawatka said the app also has filters for NSFW photos and blocks screenshots.
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PicSee’s biggest challenge may be its selectivity. While it makes sense to constantly connect your photos with close friends, family, and partners, most people don’t want that level of automatic sharing with everyone they know. That creates hurdles. Users already send photos to these close contacts through WhatsApp, iMessage, Instagram, and Snapchat, so PicSee needs to be persuaded to change its default behavior in a relatively small range of relationships.
Additionally, while the app detects photos of your friends on your phone, it doesn’t solve the problem if someone asks for photos taken at an event you went to together, such as a concert, wedding, or party.
The company said it wants to work on these social engagement features. The app already has a chat feature where people in photos can leave comments below them.
The company said it is also working on allowing users to create and manage albums, suggest albums, remove duplicates, and integrate with Google Photos/iCloud. The company also wants to use face detection technology for videos on Camera Roll.
Billion Hearts, the company behind the PicSee app, raised $4 million in funding last year led by Blume Ventures with participation from General Catalyst and Athera Ventures.
