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BLUR — Obscure and expire private photos in iMessage
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@tomazstolfa thanks, we're really excited about giving people more privacy control right in iMessage.
This does seem like a nice, polished effort to counter the effect of nefariously purposed msg-receivers -- though it is a bit funny how absolutely anything blurred like this looks decidedly un-innocent. @tomazstolfa
@elizabethhunker @tomazstolfa we've designed the "blur" effect to make it impossible to see what the actual image is while also making the BLUR preview artful in and of itself.
What we found which is kinda cool is that it really is difficult to tell what a BLUR is before you see the actual photo. After you've seen the photo however, you can seem to tell what the BLUR is. It's cool to see how our visual perceptions work.
I think how nefarious or innocent the BLUR image is perceived lies in the context and in the eye of the beholder.
I'm hoping it will be like with a closed door. If you have context of what's going on behind there, maybe you will think one thing. Someone who has no context may think something else.
Hello Product Hunt! This is Zouhair from Keepsafe. Today we’re happy to share Blur, a new iMessage privacy app from Keepsafe, with the Product Hunt community. Our mission at Keepsafe is to help keep the personal private. More than 10 million people use our apps on iOS to lock and protect private photos, videos, and important documents.
When Apple announced an app platform for iMessage with iOS10, we realized Keepsafe could help people message photos privately. Right now, it’s too easy for others to catch a glimpse of personal photos in iMessage conversations and notifications that are meant for your eyes only.
Blur obscures photos you send and receive so you can message images discreetly. Pictures stay blurred in conversations and notification pop-ups. You have to tap photos to see images clearly, and your friends need Blur to do the same. You can even set photos to expire with Blur. These photos can’t be forwarded or saved to the camera roll so you have more control over who sees what.
Our team is excited to answer your questions on Product Hunt today, and we hope you’ll check out BLUR on the App Store for iMessage
@bentossell what's the motivation for wanting privacy? It's wanting to control who sees things that have to do with you and your life... and what those things might mean to you or say about you.
In the case of photos, maybe you might be embarrassed if someone saw something you sent by accident.
With messaging, photo notifications pop up everywhere and the human eye is really good at recognizing imagery even if it's visible only briefly. So now with Blur you can control what the "receiving experience" is going to be.
effectively you can send a photo "face down" instead of "face up". we give you that control.
@zouhairb yeah totally get it.
Curious as to why you chose the angle shown in your screenshots as opposed to another example of privacy?
@zouhairb @bentossell "effectively you can send a photo "face down" instead of "face up". we give you that control." Great line.
@bentossell our research and our experience show that content privacy in messaging is most relevant to people in relationships. So we created screenshots that are relatable.
There are different motivations why you need privacy. Fear of embarrassment is a major one. I hope that the screenshots communicate that a bit.
There are obviously other motivators, especially for people who think about privacy in a business or in a policy context. However, day-to-day for consumers, we think having control of your own image is something the majority of people will relate to.
Really great app, in fact literally the only one I have bothered to install for iMessage so far. Have you looked at the deblur work posted at https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.00408 in relation to your blur methodology? Not critical to 99% of users, but could be important for targeted individuals.
@imatincr hey - thanks for the compliment and the link. Thats very cool stuff. I agree with you on the relevance. Also we have different ideas on how to represent "blur". We see the term just as a generic representation for 'not recognizable'. I'd love to talk to you on the phone or in person about your use case and what you'd like to see. Fast iteration work starts now for us.
I've been beta testing the app, and I love how well it works. It's a sleek integration. I've found that Blur and some of these new iMessage integrations give me added freedom to just be me when I'm texting close friends.
@salomemagazine thanks for beta testing and your feedback. Was real helpful.
@zouhairb Looks like one of the most useful iMessage apps I've seen yet. Just curious, are photos sent through Blur "seen" and stored by your servers? To what extent would I be giving up privacy by having my photos processed by your app?
Sorry if this was already addressed somewhere, I'm just curious about the tech/security that goes into this. Thanks 👍.
Great product integration into iMessage. Congrats to the team on the very fast implementation into the new iMessage functions !
Love it, this is a great expansion of KeepSafe. I love the idea and it's great to have privacy now for images i send on imessage
@christof_wittig right now it's independent of other Keepsafe products but with increased success we'll see how we'll connect the products
This will totally solve the problem of all those embarrassing naked cat pics my wife sends. Awesome!
@liquidchickenqq I think cats are often more embarrassed with pants on.
What happens if you send a blurred image to someone who doesn't yet have iOS 10?
@ttmonday the format outside of iMessage is BLUR image plus link. That link currently redirects to a page that tells you to upgrade :)
Obviously in the future there can be more elegant ways of providing messaging functionality even outside of iMessage but for right now, we say let's start with the iMessage platform and that's iOS 10 only.
@tulampham Thanks. What do you think how people in Munich will like this. Any cultural difference from the US?
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