PictureVault app for iPhone and iPad
Developer: Marcio Almeida
First release : 10 Apr 2009
App size: 4.95 Mb
PictureVault keeps your private or sensitive photos securely stored on your iPhone or iPod touch.
Access to stored photos requires a password of your choice.
The access password is never stored anywhere on your device.
Warning: do not forget the password. There is no way to recover it!
All photos are individually encrypted (including their thumbnails).
If your iPhone/iPod is stolen your photos will not be seen by anyone.
Features:
- Familiar user interface.
- Photos can be displayed in portrait or landscape orientation.
- Photos can be zoomed.
- Inactivity time-out shuts down the application.
- Penalty for entering the wrong password X times.
- Unlimited number of folders can be created to organize photos.
- Folders can be renamed and deleted.
- A single photo or a set of photos can be deleted.
- A single photo or a set of photos can be moved to another folder.
Photo transfer:
- Photos can be imported from the iPhone photo library and encrypted.
- Photos can be exported to the iPhone photo library.
- PictureVault has a built-in web server that allows you to easily transfer photos between an PC or Mac and PictureVault via WiFi or 3G/EDGE.
- Multiple photos can be zipped and transferred in a single shot.
Plase visit PictureVaults home page (www.ttrix.com) for a complete list of functions and capabilities.
You can also watch a flash movie of PictureVault in action.
Latest reviews of PictureVault app for iPhone and iPad
PictureVault is almost as snappy as Apples own Photo-app, but has some annoying glitches: 1.: its impossible to select and import multiple photos from iPhones own photo app., although you can select and move multiple pics inside of PictureVault. 2.: fullscreen slideshow always shows the status-bar and resizes the actual photos. 3.: slideshow doesnt have the "random"-function of iPhones own app. So far, the high price doesnt match functionality. Who expects a smooth "iPhoto-app with password protection" might be disappointed. Hopefully an update can resolve these issues.
The application does what it claims, it just doesnt do it very well. Picture files are individually stored encrypted, but encryption is only done on app startup (not on upload), so be sure to restart the app after uploading files. File names are not munged or hidden, so either dont use descriptive file names or accept that information can leak, despite the encryption. Also, the app doesnt encrypt or display anything it doesnt recognize as a photo. At the time of this review, that includes ".jpeg" files (".jpg" works) -- although the author promises that will be fixed in a future release. However, again, be aware that files may silently be left unencrypted on your device, if the app doesnt think it can display them. The user interface is a bit clunky, and feels a poor imitation of the native photo app. Zooming, in particular, is sluggish, and the view usually jumps back to the top-left of the picture after each zoom operation. Also, if you jiggle or move the device after setting a zoom, the viewer often drops the zoom and redraws the picture at the default zoom. After awakening from sleep, the last picture displayed remains on screen for at least several seconds. Upload via the HTTP interface is one file at a time (you can upload a zipfile, but you will have to delete it when you are done, as it will not be encrypted by the app). As mentioned above, uploaded files remain unencrypted until you restart the app. Also, I found uploads failed about 50% of the time, and so had to be repeated. If you desperately need encryption of your photos, it may be worth your money. If you just need access control -- and still want a good user experience -- there are better apps out there.
It crashes. Picture safe is cheeper and works.
Locks my phone up every time I attempt to open and look at photos I uploaded. Sample images seem to do fine. This app does not work as well as your "Cryptovault" app which I use every day. Scrolling through photos and zoom need tons of improvement, need to be more iphone like. Very unhappy I spent $4.99.
This app is okay if you want to slowly add each picture one by one. Picture quality is decent, and it does resize photos which is a nice feature. The reason for one star? This app does NOTHING special that other apps do, yet is 5 bucks! In fact, the best app out there in my opinion (Picture Safe) is 99 cents and does more than this app! That, my friends, is a rip off. The other big detractor from this app: the name of this app appears on your home screen!! Who would NOT want to see what is in an app named Picture Vault?!?! Seriously!! Why couldnt the developers have either renamed the app name for the home screen or just abbreviated it to PV??? Just silly.....and 5 times more money than other apps that do more......