“Plant a photograph, watch it grow.” Photovine’s tagline is simply as catchy because the concept behind its launch — a mobile app-based picture sharing service that groups images together using common photo-driven themes. These groupings, called vines, can help you hook up with strangers while sharing photos of everyday items that you just wouldn’t otherwise have any interest in photographing. You may have a vine fascinated about Swingline staplers, or magazine covers, or bottle caps. But as clever as this idea could seem, it’s difficult to disregard Piictu, which budded several months before the Google app. It’s not at all uncommon for duplicate services to sprout, all in keeping with the identical underlying concept. But Photovine doesn’t stop there — the app’s design can also be remarkably identical to Piictu, right down to page layouts or even main category tabs. For Piictu’s “Following” tab, Photovine has “Watching.” Piictu’s “Latest” section is matched with “Fresh,” and Photovine didn’t even bother looking for a synonym for “Popular,” which you will find in both apps. Jump past the break for a deeper look, besides statements from the makers of both apps.
We reached out to both Google and Piictu to talk about the striking similarities between their apps. Piictu co-founder Jon Slimak said that he just recently discovered Photovine, and initially felt flattered. In actual fact, it seems like he still does. He also doesn’t have any plans to pursue the problem with Google, explaining “we’re confident in our product, and we are not occupied with any of this. We’re just heads down and finishing next iterations and future iterations.” Slimak said that since February his designer have been posting progress on Dribbble, a public platform for creative types to share their latest projects. It’s possible that the Google designers got a bit… inspiration here.
A Google spokesperson explained that the Photovine team have been engaged on its app for quite your time, saying “Photovine is a photograph-sharing app built by about a folks at Slide, who conceived and began building the product late last year, long before Piictu existed.” It is very likely that the unique concept was fresh when Slide , an organization acquired by Google last summer, began development. But it’s equally unlikely that the app’s designers had never seen early versions of Piictu, or the ultimate app. Regardless, it doesn’t sound like Piictu and Photovine have any interest in duking it out, Apple / Samsung style , so we predict both apps to transport forward as planned. Photovine is currently in a “family and friends” testing phase, so our experience is restricted to the photos and video that Google has posted. If you cannot wait any further to begin sharing entirely random photos with a completely random group of strangers, then let us direct your attention to Piictu. It’s apparently more than enough for Google, so it may possibly in addition be adequate for you, too.
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