‘Shorts’ wants to make your camera roll a lot more public

What if your friends could see every photo you took?

Not every photo is flattering, or even interesting, but a new photo sharing app called Shorts wants you to look past all that. Shorts is a photo sharing app with a twist, and a unique one at that — it wants you to open up your iOS camera roll for the world to see.

In exchange for your candor, you’ll have equal access to other camera rolls from any user who’s willing to add you as a friend.

Paul Davison, the creator of Shorts, pointed out to The Verge that most of the photos we take are effectively useless. He’s right. Nine of every 10 photos I take never find their way to a social network and are left to wither away in the darkest recesses of my camera roll. I’m okay with that.

Personally, I’m not overly private, but this is a terrifying app for those that are. Shorts does give you the ability to choose what you hide on the app but it’s really just adding another point of failure between you and an embarrassing misstep.

While the idea of being able to voyeuristically follow your friends around as they live their lives isn’t a bad one, the idea that any of us live a life interesting enough for friends to want to follow is, misguided.

My camera roll is a great example. A quick glance shows that it’s almost equally split between photos of my dogs and screenshots for work. If that’s exciting to you, I’ll send you a zip file and we can avoid this Shorts nonsense altogether.

I’ll be passing on Shorts, what about you?

➤ Follow people’s camera rolls [Shorts via The Verge]