A rival to Apple’s cards is here in the form of Touchnote Postcards and Greeting Card Printed and Posted in the Mail with Free Worldwide Postage. In the same vein as cards, take a picture, edit text, select address and it’s mailed to the recipiant from your iOS device.
So you can put an end to going on holiday and looking at the rows upon rows of standard tourist fare postcards and send something a touch more heartfelt and person. Or at the very least if you want a photo printing you could use it like that.
Touchmate PostCards or Greetings Cards
Use of swiping gestures throughout here let you choose between the 2 formats bringing you to the editing screen afterwards. Of course greeting cards will send you 2 credits as apposed to 1 for a postcard.
Alas the interface doesn’t stretch to fit iPhone 5 devices and its also just for the iPhone but works well enough on an iPad in stretched mode.
The first steps comes in the form of selecting what picture you want for your postcard or greeting card. Of course existing photo’s or taking a new photo is the defacto standard but Facebook is included as well. Great idea for that impromptu card once again.
Image options are limited to zoom in or out but oddly enough no inbuilt rotate but i’ll bet thats on the to-do list.
Captions can be added but there’s little in the way of customising. Basically you type your text and that’s your lot. No font’s, no different sizes, what you see is what you get. Caution is advised if you decide to change your picture, you will loose your message on the front and with no copy and paste function either it’s easy to forget that moment of satirical genius.
The back of the postcard is where you put that all important “wish you were message allowing 14, albeit, short lines but it’s enough to get the message across. Address book integration is there alongside an ability to just type in your own random address.
Addressing Confusion
In a test I added myself and another for receivng the card but removing a receipiant gives a worrying message that the person would be deleted from my address book. is that the app Address book or my iPhones address book. Clearer wording needed methinks.
TouchMate Costs. It’s cheaper than Cards
Payment for all items is done by creating an account with touch mate and then purchasing credits. The more you purchase the better the deal you get.
1 credit = 1.49
6 credits = 7.45 (1.24 each)
10 credits = 11.92 (1.19 each)
20 credits = 22.35 (1.12 each)
50 credits = 52.12 (1.04 each)
How does it compare to Apple’s Cards App?
Your iPhone photos as great postcards are just £1.49 and that INCLUDES FREE UK and worldwide shipping.
Greeting cards are £2.98 giving you that eternal issue of always having leftover credit and no way just to purchase a one off card.
Downsides so far.
- If you change the image AFTER writing a caption you’ll have to re write the caption.
- Doesn’t stretch to fill the iPhone 5 screen.
- No way to rotate a picture (ie. potrait into landscape)
- Text formatting on picture is limited (non existent)
- Am i deleting an address from my iPhone or just the app?
Obviously those font and text elements you can argue is what you pay extra for the Apple or similar apps
Well the card arrived and I was more than impressed with the quality of it. By no means does it look cheap and the print quality from an iPhone picture is great.
TouchNote is Available from the App Store
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