Most of you will have heard of Fraser Speirs. He's the developer behind FlickrExport and now Exposure for iPhone.

This week he's made two consecutive and interesting posts that show what it's been like to be a software developer during the first few days of the Store's operation.

In one post, he complains about the review process imposed on not just every app, but every update to every app that gets submitted to the Store. Things are not being reviewed fast enough, he says: "If Apple can't guarantee a maximum 24 hour review process, they should drop it."

In the second, Fraser reveals that Exposure has been downloaded an average of 3,200 times per day since the Store opened. It already has more users than FlickrExport for Aperture, a much older and better-established product.

"These are crazy numbers," he says. His point is simple: the iPhone as a platform is going to be huge. In fact, it's going to be "Apple's mainstream platform for 2012 and beyond." Now there's a prediction.

FlickrExport is my favorite iPhoto plugin (and it would be my favorite Aperture plugin too, if I used Aperture), though I will admit that it is the only iPhoto plugin I use. Developer Fraser Speirs has been dropping hints for awhile about the next version of FlickrExport, and now it is available... in beta form that is.

New to FlickrExport 3 are:

• A big focus on groups. You can add pictures to multiple groups, create 'group actions,' and it even displays the group rules (i.e. it will tell you if there is a limit to the number of pictures you can upload per day, if the group is moderated, and so on.)
• Auto-completion of tags (which are downloaded from Flickr)
• A much better way to upload photosets, allowing you to organize the pictures in the sets before they are uploaded
• Geotaging, with the ability to create presets, as well as fetch latitude and longitude from Google Earth

Check out the screencast at the FlickrExport 3 beta website to get the skinny on all the new features.

The FlickrExport 3 beta is available for both Aperture 2 and iPhoto. Keep in mind that when FlickrExport 3 leaves beta it won't be freeware, though pricing isn't set as of yet.

An increasing number of people are storing their whole digital lives online through services like YouTube, Flickr and .Mac. For those Mac users that use Flickr and want to move their photos with a couple clicks in iPhoto, there are a few options including Flickr Uploadr and FlickrExport. Well, here comes a new member to the group of iPhoto-Flickr plug-ins -- Free Flickr eXporter (or FFXporter).

This plug-in, like many of the others, allows you to upload photos from your iPhoto library with a couple clicks. You can also add them to different sets or create a new set right from the export window, set the privacy levels, and resize the picture to your specifications. The only thing that you cannot do from the plug-in is add a description to the photo; however, once the picture(s) are uploaded, it takes you to a Flickr page to fill in this information. Overall, this is an excellent iPhoto to Flickr plug-in if you don't want a paid plug-in.

FFXporter is available as a free download from the developers website.

I have a disclosure to make: I love FlickrExport - Connected Flow's very excellent plugins that allow you export photos straight from iPhoto, or Aperture, to Flickr. It's the reason I took to Flickr - at a time that their website uploader was somewhat basic. Fraser Speirs, the man behind Connected Flow, was kind enough to chat with TUAW about the future of the plugin, and shared a few words about his forthcoming application.

FlickrExport is one of my must have Mac apps. This little plugin for iPhoto, or Aperture, makes it a breeze to export photos from iPhoto/Aperture to Flickr. Getting your photos on Flickr is only part of the joys that FlickrExport offers up, it also makes tagging your photos very easy (and this is coming from a lazy tagger).

Fraser Speirs, the developer behind FlickrExport, has posted a sneak peek at Flickr Export 3 on the Connected Flow blog. This screencast shows off FlickrExport 3's advanced set creation abilities. I, for one, can't wait to get my hands on this version of FlickrExport as I make tons of sets on Flickr, and this will save me lots of time.

No shipping date has been announced for FlickrExport 3 and update details are not known, though you can get a license for FlickrExport 2 right now for iPhoto (£12), a lite version for Aperture (free), or Aperture (£12).

Fraser Speirs' FlickrExport plug-ins for iPhoto and Aperture are the undisputed kings of bridging the gap between Flickr and your Mac-managed photos. The plug-ins are pretty powerful, offering a lot of strong integration with Flickr by adding photos to sets or creating new sets on the fly, as well as keeping in step with the tags you use in your account. The Aperture plug-in can even keep track of the photos you upload to Flickr and replace them with updated versions - instead of creating a duplicate. Apparently not one to sit in one place for too long, however, Speirs is already hard at work on a new version, FlickrExport 3.

Not many details are known just yet, but Speirs has been tweeting some teasers about the new version, and just this morning published a screencast (.MOV link) demoing some of the impressive new Groups features in FlickrExport 3 for Aperture. Most notably, users will no longer be limited with adding a picture to one group at a time - the new version features a table of all the groups to which you belong, allowing you to check more than one group for adding the images to. FlickrExport 3 will even check with Flickr to make sure you haven't overstepped the upload quota for each group.

[Update: Mr. Speirs stopped by to comment that the new features in this particular demo will also be present in FlickrExport 3 for iPhoto as well; he just happened to be demoing them in Aperture for this screencast.]

No release date has been set for FlickrExport 3 just yet, and I assume the prices will remain the same for the iPhoto plug-in (~ $23 USD) and Aperture plug-in (~ $27 USD).

First there was FlickrExport for iPhoto, and it was good. Then its developer, Fraser Speirs, asked us whether we wanted him to make a FlickrExport for Aperture, and the answer to that question was also good. Now there is FlickrExport Lite for Aperture, and as a free product, it looks pretty sweet. Previously known at Flickr as the Flickr Plugin for Aperture, Fraser has re-named the plugin and brought it home to be displayed alongside its bigger brothers, complete with a feature-comparison page that breaks down the major features of all three FlickrExport products. If you've been on the fence between using iPhoto or Aperture and want to upload to Flickr, these plugins are where it's at, and I actually learned a few things from this feature comparison page, such as the fact that the Aperture plugin can add geodata before uploading, add tags after uploading and even replace existing photos on Flickr. Looks like this blogger is going to have to give Aperture a more thorough run-through.

Oh, almost forgot: all the FlickrExport plugins have been updated with bug fixes and one big new feature: the ability to set the moderation level on the photos you upload.

Fraser Speirs was happy to announce this morning the official 1.0 release of his FlickrExport for Aperture plugin, which provides a direct conduit for your works of art to the heavenly nirvana of Flickr. I don't own Aperture, but the plugin seems to have the same UI and functionality as his #1 smash hit: FlickrExport for iPhoto (though it should be noted that on his product page, Frasier makes it clear that the existence of a feature in one of the plugins does not necessitate its existence in the other). Pricing for the Aperture plugin is $26.25 USD (or £14), and a cross-grades from the iPhoto plugin can be had for 50% off by using your FlickrExport for iPhoto serial number as a coupon code. Clever, Mr. Speirs.

Demos of both plugins are of course offered, and Apple (finally!) released a 30-day test drive of Aperture last month, so you really have no excuse for not checking these bad boys out. I was a user of the iPhoto plugin since the early days, and I gladly dropped the cash for a license.

Fraser Speirs has released FlickrExport for Aperture 1.0b3 and FlickrExport for iPhoto 2.0.3, both catching up to some changes in the Flickr API. Further, these updates address a few hanging and, in some cases, nasty crashing bugs when uploading or canceling an upload. Fraser has also included a list of known issues to look out for with each update post, especially since FlickrExport for Aperture is still in beta.

Fraser Speirs has updated his fantastic FlickrExport plugin for iPhoto to 2.0.1, ushering in a few key bug fixes an an API compatibility update. The specific bugs that Mr. Speirs squashed (murderer!) are the 'Waiting for Flickr' hangup the plugin could sometimes experience upon finishing an upload (I've been personally bitten by this one on occasion), as well as a nasty iPhoto crash upon upload.

You can grab the update from Fraser's update post on his Connected Flow blog, or from the main Connected Flow product page.

Thanks Nik Fletcher!

Fraser Speirs, creator of the highly useful FlickrExport and other apps, is asking for feedback on his blog as to whether users would be interested in a similar ApertureExport app. He warns that ApertureExport wouldn't be quite as well tied into Aperture as FlickrExport is to iPhoto, and this is due to the current version of Aperture (apparently) lacking a plugin API.

Still, if the idea of being able to point at a feature in your own copy of ApertureExport some day and telling your friends "that was my idea!" sounds appealing, head over to Mr. Speirs' post and toss in your $0.02.

It sounds like confusion has arisen over how FlickrExport's licensing terms work; specifically, how many licenses one needs to purchase, and for which machines. To help simplify things, Fraser has adopted terms like The Omni Group uses, which I personally applaud: a user can purchase one license and use it on two machines; for example, a desktop and a notebook (though both licenses can't be in use simultaneously). On the other hand, a business can't purchase ten licenses for twenty employees, even if no more than ten copies of FlickrExport are in use at any given time.

Read up on Fraser's blog post for an update and a more in-depth explanation of the simplified terms, and if you're one of the confused users who doesn't need an extra license or two that you purchased, Fraser will be personally contacting you to offer a refund.

The time has come: FlickrExport 2.0 is upon us. It is a very nice update to this indispensable plugin for iPhoto, but the only thing that you're really interested in is how much it now costs. A single license will set you back £12 (that's about $21 US).

There is a 30 day demo available with the following limitations:

• You may only upload 5 photos in any one upload session, but you can upload as many batches of 5 as you like.
• Each photo will be tagged with "flickrexport2demo".
• Each photo will have "Uploaded with a demo version of FlickrExport 2" appended to its description.

 

Fraser Speirs announced on his personal blog today that FlickrExport 2, his fantastic iPhoto plugin for uploading to Flickr, is done and will be shipping soon. Yes, we know that since it isn't available right now, this post becomes a little less useful, but we thought y'all might appreciate hearing when a beta product has actually been announced as 'finished' (*ahem*, Google). As Fraser's original beta 2 post states, pricing for this vastly updated and improved version will be announced when the FlickrExport product page goes live with the new version. Stay tuned.

[thanks Nik Fletcher!]

FlickrExport has entered a 2.0 beta phase, ushering in some really, really cool new features including:

• FlickrExport now supports uploading to existing sets.
• Uploaded photos can be added to a group pool after upload.
• FlickrExport now displays a list of your tags used on Flickr which can be added to photos before uploading. This list can be filtered using regular expressions.
• FlickrExport can copy the title and description back to iPhoto if it has been changed inside FlickrExport. This feature is turned off by default.
• If a photo's date has been modified in iPhoto, FlickrExport now communicates this to Flickr.
• It is now possible to specify description text for a new Photoset as well as its title.

The one catch in this new version, however, is that Fraser Speirs, its developer, has decided to turn FlickrExport into shareware. While I can't find a price anywhere on the FlickrExport 2.0 beta site, I personally am not surprised, as this is a powerful plug-in that Mr. Speirs has obviously spent quite a bit of time on. I know I'll be happy to buy a license once he announces a price - but what about you, loyal FlickrExport users? Do you mind offering up some of your hard-earned cash for some of Mr. Speir's hard work?