Lifecards

Chrisa | Mar 17, 2009 Photo & Video, Uncategorized, Utilities

User rating: (20 votes, average: 3.05 out of 5)
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I’m a fan of postcards.  I collect antique postcards from places I’ve lived, and I still send postcards to friends and family when I travel, especially if I can find one that is either really beautiful or really corny.   So I like the idea of being able to create a postcard-type image and email it from my iPhone to people.  That way I can take a crisp picture of something beautiful or corny in my travels and send it while I’m still standing in front of said beautiful or corny thing, complete with personalized message (i.e. “the weather is here, wish you were beautiful.”). 

Lifecards from Vivid Apps offers all the promise of creating electronic postcards, with none of the joy of easily creating and sending something you’d be proud of. 

There are 20 nice backgrounds and several different layouts to choose from.  You can import a picture from your photos and resize it, rotate it, and position it easily.  But that’s where the ease stops.  Choose the text box on the template to add your text, type in what you want, then use the tools to change the color of the font or resize it.  Maybe.  Sometimes it takes you back to the text entry screen, no matter how many times you choose the tool for font color or size, sometimes you can size the text, sometimes you can’t.  It’s as buggy as my garage in mid-summer.  Save the image and come back later to edit it?  Forget it.  You might as well start again.  You can’t choose a new image, and the text editing bugs are still there in all their defective glory. 

After you create your card, you can save it to your image library, and then, of course, email it from there or use it as wallpaper.  But the resolution of the photographs is somehow degraded in the translation to a Lifecard, and then one of the great things about the iPhone camera – it’s resolution – is lost. 

I checked the developer website for signs of a new release – this is version 1.0, after all – but there was no clue that an update was coming.  That being the case, I’d definitely recommend holding on to your $2.99 until they work out the bugs.   If I was Vivid Apps, I’d make this free until I got this stuff worked out.  It’s got a lot of promise, but it’s just not usable in its current version.  Close, but no cigar.

My sister-in-law. Not that you'd know, because I can't size the text.
My sister-in-law. Not that you'd know, because I can't size the text.
The text sizing tool seems to be ornamental.
The text sizing tool seems to be ornamental.

Save for later or export. Yes, my dog died. Thanks in advance for your sympathy.
Save for later or export. Yes, my dog died. Thanks in advance for your sympathy.
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  • Michael (Admin)

    Sorry about your dog!! :sad: I know what you mean about the dog being like a child… it’s so true.

    About this app, it’s a shame that the functionality isn’t there yet, but I get the feeling there’s a certain mojo that developers acquire over time as they build their iPhone app skills, kind of like ninjas-in-training. Hopefully Vivid Apps will get there eventually.

  • http://www.mexircus.com Jens Egeblad

    Dear Chrisa

    Well, that was a pretty tough review, but I suppose you have highlighted some usage problems we did not anticipate.

    I think that there is a few things you misunderstood. First of all there is an update submitted — We haven’t written on the webpage, but it says so on the iTunes store. I figured that more people would look there and I didn’t get around to updating the website (I submitted the update a few days ago).

    You can replace the images (double tap on them to replace). It is written in the documentation — I never expected this to be a big issue or something people would want to do often.

    Changing the size of the text is easily done. Tap on the text and the size button on the bottom of the screen. It sounds like you are tapping on the text even if the size button is already visible which will open the text-editing. The text updates a few seconds after you have moved the slider! Just wait 2-3 seconds and you will see the size change. The same thing applies to alignment and color changes. I honestly did expect people not to discover this.

    Why doesn’t it work to save the card?

    There are resolution problems on the iPod touch, so if you have used an iPod touch and saved to the photo-album I can understand your negative comments.

    We have really put a lot of energy into Lifecards, so I hope that you will consider some of these points and give Lifecards a second chance.

    Best – Jens (Vivid Apps)

  • http://www.mexircus.com Jens Egeblad

    Sorry,

    “The same thing applies to alignment and color changes. I honestly did expect people not to discover this.”

    Should have been

    “I honestly did not expect people to discover this.”

    Best – Jens

  • http://sceneexchange.typepad.com Chrisa

    Hi Jens:

    It doesn’t thrill me to leave a less than stellar review, but I’m glad to hear there is an update pending. Once the update is ready and approved, leave us a note here in comments, and I’ll be happy to give an updated review.

    Like I said, I think this app has a lot of promise, it’s just not quite there in version 1.0. I look forward to seeing the update.

    Chrisa