Inalife’s Digital Photo Album Promises to Preserve a Family’s Legacy
The new startup Inalife wants to make a digital family album for many generations.
While Inalife’s desktop app has been out since July, next week will see the arrival of iOS and Android apps, TechCrunch reports.
With Inalife, users can create an interactive family tree where they can zoom in on relatives to see their photos, videos, and other details. In addition to serving as a massive digital family photo album, users can also send messages in the future, scheduling video and photo arrivals for special upcoming dates, birthdays, or other milestones.
As personal records are more often stored on phones, memory cards, and social media rather than tape from camcorders and printed photos, a modern keepsake for all these items makes sense and may channel the convenience of a physical album in a permanent digital medium.
“With almost 7 billion people using smartphones globally and with our most cherished photos and memories stored on them, launching the app versions of Inalife was the next stage of our plan to help bring families closer together and let them connect across generations,” says Inalife founder and CEO Nicholas Worley in a news release.
One crucial element to note is how Inalife will carry on through generations. Any records reliant on specific software are prone to obsolescence. Inalife’s website states that data is stored with SSL Security and uses cloud storage, but it is unclear what would happen if the desktop or mobile apps become unsupported in the future. It is also unclear if users can download their familial memories to their own devices or to an external hard drive.
If users stop paying for the service, their data will remain on Inalife, but they won’t be able to upload anything else. And the company allows people to select an executor to take over an account should they pass away or become incapacitated.
There are four packages, starting with a free tier that offers 100MB of storage. That will likely be used up quickly with photos and videos of the whole family. A $6 level provides 5GB, which still isn’t a ton, but it adds the ability to create sub-accounts, allowing multiple family members to contribute. The $10 and $20 tiers offer 10GB and 30GB respectively. There is also the option to purchase additional storage at a rate of $2 for 1GB each.
While finding a solution free of snags and future obsolescence remains difficult, Inalife offers a way to organize and preserve a family’s story.
Image Credits: Inalife
