Flickr Updates Its iPhone App, But Where’s Flickr For iPad?

Flickr has just pushed out an update to its iPhone app, easing the batch upload process and making some UI tweaks. It will surely be welcomed by the many Flickr users who use iPhones, but Flickr’s continual reticence to develop for new platforms remains a problem. It took them more than a year to produce a native iPhone app, about the same for Android. We’re coming up on the two-year mark for the iPad — isn’t it about time?

Let’s hope so. It’s a big opportunity, and with rumors of a high-resolution iPad around the corner with the chops to do Photoshops, Flickr should be straining at the bit.

The current apps for the iPad aren’t awful or anything: FlickStackr looks nice, and appears more functional than the iPhone app. A new iPad app called Lens.ly launched today that stores your photos locally, though it looks overly simplistic and kind of redundant. Flickr should have owned this space from the beginning, as they must know there’s a good overlap between their users and iOS users.

Flickr seems to have missed the boat for social interaction, though there’s definitely an active on-site community. It’s not a fundamentally social service, so compared to something like Instagram it will always be lacking a bit. But many photographers use and like the service, so Flickr should cater to them. More community, more discovery, more functionality for, say, importing shots directly from the camera or card, that sort of thing.

If the high-resolution thing turns out to be true, then the new iPad will be very popular among photographers and artists. That would definitely be a time to invest and strike. I’m a Flickr user myself and would happily pay for a “Pro” app that made my iPad into more than a viewing window for my content.