IMPORTANT information about the upcoming app update. Please read.

I’m posting this in the General topic even though it’s really about the app. It’s important!

Edited to add: if you don’t have any photos that you want backed up, just delete the current app and then install the new app. (Sorry about this being in the wrong place but editing on an iPad stinks. I can’t scroll down to the proper location.)

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It’s time to prepare for the app upgrade. It’s coming, there are some neat features (adding a camera from the app and scanning the IMEI code!) but the transition may be a bit annoying.

First, ALL the photos (and I mean ALL) that are in your app when you install the new one will be backed up to your phone but they will be available through your regular photos app, not the Spartan Camera app. It’s time for the picture hoarders to do some housekeeping.

Make sure that you have saved all important photos and videos in the app. Then clean house. The easiest, automatic way is to change purge days to 1 and wait until the next day to upgrade the app. That way, all the pics that are over 1 day old and not saved will be deleted automatically. Or you can delete the unwanted photos manually.

Whatever you can do to reduce the number of photos to be backed up is a great idea. You will be able to delete the saved photos from your regular photos app after they have been backed up, but the more photos that have to be backed up, the longer it will take.

Once you’ve reduced the number of photos, you can install the new app. You will be asked if you want to back up your photos. Most of you will want to do that. It will tell you that it is backing up and this may take a while.

Then you will log in to the new app. The new app will download the most recent 50 photos for each camera. If you have a bunch of cameras, this can take a LONG time. You’ll want to do this at a time when you don’t need to access the app so you’ll probably want to do this during quiet time in the evening (or whenever your evening is).

Once you get past this transition, you’ll probably appreciate the new app (which warns you when your credits are getting low, shows you which camera or cameras is down because of credits, makes it possible to purchase credits directly from the app, see pending commands on the status report page AND cancel them, lets you add cameras and share cameras from the app instead of using the portal). They’re still working on a few features (like being able to designate cameras as inactive so they can stay on your account but they’re not listed in your active cameras) but it’s a nice app.

The new app purges photos and videos after 30 days. The ones you save are stored in your regular camera photo storage in a folder (Android) or album (iOS) with the camera’s number on it. No, it’s not as convenient as having 3-year-old saved photos in the app. OTOH, if you are backing up your photos to the cloud, your saved Spartan photos will be backed up automatically, so you’ll still have them if you change phones, lose your phone, etc.

Also, the lack of sound on videos saved to iOS devices has been fixed.

BTW, not upgrading won’t be an option, but you’ll have 30 days (I think). You don’t need to get in a rush to upgraded, but the sooner you plan for it by weeding out excess photos and finding a “quiet time” to do the actual upgrade, the better.

(Speaking from experience. I have four iPads, two Android tablets, and two Android phones that I’m upgrading, and 25 or so (give or take, I’m afraid to count) cameras on my account.)