flickr iphoneIt’s amazing that it’s taken so long, but Yahoo has finally released an official Flickr app for the iPhone. It’s just a shame the launch hasn’t gone as smoothly as it could have.

The app itself looks gorgeous – truly a thing of beauty. It features everything you’d expect, with the ability to upload and geotag photos (and videos on the 3GS), view photos from friends, family and contacts and explore the whole of Flickr. The scrolling photo effect used to display photos is expertly presented.

However, I can’t try it myself as Yahoo isn’t accepting my username and password. We’re getting reports of others with the same problem – they’re locked out of the app. That’s a frustrating and hopefully short-term blip but nothing compared to what one user is reporting. Stenstrøm Consulting’s blog reports the following:

(A) colleague of mine just installed the new iPhone Flickr app. He then added me as his contact. As soon as he did, he could see all my private photos before I added him as a contact! I believe this is a major security flaw, that gives anyone with an iPhone access to photos that are not publically shared.

Fingers crossed this turns out to be an isolated incident or Yahoo could have a whole heap of annoyed users on its hands.

Flickr for iPhone