Popular photo storage and sharing site, 500px, has updated its excellent Android app to version 1.6.1 today, providing long-requested features such as push notifications and comment replies. The Android app has, for some time, been behind the iOS version in features, but is slowly catching up as the company focuses on a quickly-growing segment of its user base.
The app looks gorgeous on many high-definition smartphones and tablets, and with the new push notifications, uploaders can receive pings for when users like, favourite, comment, or follow their photos, or when the 500px curators bestow an Editors’ choice. Then, once users have commented, they can now reply. It’s all good stuff.
Another interesting note is that, as of the next version, 500px will be dropping support for devices below Android 4.0. 500px COO, Evgeny Tchebotarev, told me that “just 16% of users use our app with Android version lower than 4.0, and this number is dropping by around 0.1% every week.” This is in great contrast to the overall usage statistics, which puts Android 2.3 Gingerbread at around 46%, though that number is dropping precipitously.
Mobile users still cannot upload photos to the service, something Tchebotarev promises the company is looking into. Unlike Flickr and other photo sharing sites, 500px focuses on high-quality content, a reputation that could be sullied if it starts allowing quick, low-quality mobile photos.
Download 500px for Android.
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