I carry notecards and a felt tip quick dry pen so I can jot down notes I need to leave behind. Notes for myself are typed right into my iPhone so I can search and organize on both my iPhone and my notebook via a sync. What I’m not good at is getting to a holiday card store. It isn’t that I don’t want to, time just slips away.
A lot of people get around this shortcoming we share by using the many online electronic card Web sites. Now, those sites are getting phished so most people who get a email alerting that they have a card waiting, they never click the link to go see what you ‘sent’.
Lucky for the iPhone and Touch owner, you can now create cards right on your device and send those bits of well wishing inside of an email. The two apps I will cover here is “Postcard” and “Memento“.
The brief description:
Postcard – Use an image you have in memory on your device, snap a new photo, or use a screenshot of a Google Map. Add text, add a to email address, send and the receiving party gets a email containing the image/text side by side in a postcard image.
Memento – This application comes with 19 card ‘frames’. You can select a image from your device or take a new image to put inside of the frame. Each frame has a text box that you can change the text to match your greeting. Your creation is saved in a list to use/edit later then send inside of an email when the need arises.
Postcard: <– click this link to go to the iTunes app store to view the developers description.
Across the bottom of the screen is the options icons – left to right.
First is the button to choose from the images you have on the device. The second icon is used if you want to take and use a new image
The center icon gives you a list of Google Map options – a handy item for a meeting or party invite card. After you choose what you will be using for an image, you can tap the text area to bring up a full screen text area – type what you want to appear on the final post card.
When done getting the card set up with the image and text, your ready to send or save for later.
The fourth icon on the bottom of the screen results in a “mail to” screen to enter your from, to, and subject info. The last icon to the far right presents you with the option to save the card to use later (saves to the built in photobook area
A negative for some folks with this Postcard app is that it sends the card through your gmail account… so you will need a gmail acct.
Memento: <– click this link to go to the iTunes app store to view the developers description.
Upon launching the app, your presented with a list of cards you are working on and ones you have completed. If you choose to create a new one, you have multiple screens to sweep through showing your 19 built in frame options to choose from.
Choosing one of cards causes it to become a full size work space. Tapping the camera icon in the middle of the frame gives you the ability to select an image you wish to use. Tapping the text box brings up a full screen text box.
A negative I had with the image selection to use is the sizing and placement tool. As soon as you choose an image, your asked if you want to move it around the screen, expand, or reduce the size. When you choose to use the image, that is what you get in the frame. You can’t go back and change the image is you have it placed or sized wrong – you have to start over again.
A very handy feature is a small button at the top of the frame when your working on a card. This takes you back to all of the frame options with the image and text you used already inserted in all of the cards. This makes it quick and easy to change your mind mid card creation without loosing all of your hard work.
Two rather simple and inexpensive apps that once you have you find all kinds of uses for… one being able to never be late with a personalized card for any event.