Filter and caption your photos with Typic

Typic is a new photography app for iOS devices from Hi Mom. It's available now as a free iPhone-specific download from the App Store. Typic's purpose is clear and simple: to enable users to take photographs, apply retro-style filters, overlay a small amount of text atop them then share the pictures on various social networks. It is a fairly no-frills app in terms of functionality, but it is presented well and easy to use, which is what users generally want from this kind of experience. Upon starting the app for the first time, users are confronted with a sample image and a single button with a camera icon on it. By tapping this button, they may either take a new photo (using the front or rear camera of their device) or select a photo from their library. Once a photo has been taken or selected, it must be cropped to equal (square) proportions using the iPhone's standard "move and scale" interface. Following this, the user may then swipe through several pages of options to finalize the way they would like their image to look. First comes the selection of five different retro-style filters -- or choosing to go without. Next comes the ability to write the caption. This is typed directly onto the image, then may be freely moved around simply by dragging it. It may also be scaled using a pair of buttons, or the font changed from seven different options. There is no means to change the color of the text, however -- it is always white. On the next page of options, users may adjust the opacity of their text and how curved the borders on the picture frame are. There is no means of removing the border entirely, but it may be made either white or black. Users may also optionally apply a "blur" effect onto their source photo if they would like to give prominence to the text via a "depth of field" effect. Once the image is completed, users then have a number of different options. They may save the image directly to their photo library, send it in an email, share it on Facebook or Twitter (both of which use iOS' native social functionality rather than requiring use of another app) or share it to an external app. Confusingly, the "share in external app" option is marked with the Instagram logo despite seemingly having compatibility with a wide variety of apps that accept incoming files. On the device on which Typic was tested (an iPhone 4S running iOS 6.0), this function offered the possibility to share the finished image to Instagram, Box, Evernote, ColorSplash and Air Sharing. Sharing to apps other than Instagram appears to work, though files are shared in Instagram-native ".ig" format rather than as a standard .JPG or .PNG image. Evernote had no problem viewing the .ig attachment when tapping on it, but was unable to recognize it as an image automatically. Typic is a good quality app that works well and performs the function it sets out to do admirably. There is plenty of potential for future expansion and monetization, too -- the selection of filters in particular is rather limited at present, so more could be added over time, perhaps via in-app purchase. The app would also benefit from the ability to change the font color and perhaps rotate the text freely. As it stands, however, it's a solid app that is well-designed and intuitive to use, and a good addition to the arsenal of photo manipulation apps already available for iOS. At the time of writing, Typic is not yet ranked in the App Store leaderboards. Follow its progress with AppData, our tracking service for mobile and social apps and developers.

Social Pro Daily

Filter and caption your photos with Typic

Pete Davison

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Pete Davison