The 500px network has come to the iPad with an app for viewing the latest photos shared on their network. 500px purports to be a network similar to Flickr, for budding photographers to share their pictures. This is not an app for uploading photos to the service; no, it serves as a gateway for exploring what is shared by its users.
As soon as the app is opened up, thumbnails of the top recent photographs are displayed, and can be cycled through. Users can vote up photos they like, favorite them, and add their comments to them from within the app. Photos can easily be swiped through, and the ability to view photos as a slideshow exists. The photos are all very high-quality, even the latest photos uploaded to the service all look like they were taken either with expensive cameras or run through the finest image processing known to man.
The app supports sharing to Facebook (which can also be used to log in to rate photos), Twitter (though it does not use iOS5′s Twitter authentication yet), and even to Tumblr. Links can also be shared via Messages, email and opened in Safari. The last method is the only way to save photographs, especially as many of these photos would make for fantastic wallpapers on the iPad. 500px users with friends on the service can view their friends’ photos as well.
While there are a lot of great photos in the 500px app, it is important to note that there are copious amounts of nude photography in this app – the photos are hidden and thumbnails not displayed unless the user chooses to, but it’s something to note when using the app. Those not wishing for these photos to be displayed will want to enable “Filter nude photographs” in the settings.
500px serves as a great introduction to the service, and as a great app for even just those looking to view some fancy photographs on the big iPad screen.
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