Apple Announces Cards App For iOS
Written by John Thompson on October 4, 2011 · Filed under Software, Tech
We already saw what iOS 5 will have to offer in June, but at their event today, Apple announced an additional application for the upcoming operating system: Cards.
Cards is, essentially, a service which is similar to UK offerings such as moonpig.com, through which you can create and customise your own cards from your browser and then send them to the person of your choice.
Using the app, which will be a separate download to iOS 5, users will be able to create and (snail) mail cards to recipients straight from their iPhone. All of the cards can be customised with custom pictures and text from your iPhone, and will be printed on high quality paper before being sent.
When choosing the card that you wish to send, you will be able to choose from 21 designs in 6 different categories, which range from ‘thank you’ cards to holiday cards and birth announcements.
From within the app, you will be able to fully customise not only the outside of the card, but also whatever content is on the inside of the card as well. If that doesn’t fully satisfy your need for perfection, you can also take a look at what the actual envelope will look like upon its arrival at its destination.
This is hardly a ‘revolutionary’ application. Far from it, we’ve been able to do this from our browsers for a few years already, but it will no doubt be convenient to do it straight from an app on your iPhone instead of firing up a browser and navigating some frustrating websites.
Of course, there’s already Moonpig app available for the iPhone, but the interface doesn’t look nearly as good as Cards’ does, and it has a whole host of 1 star reviews making it a fairly easy decision for anyone wondering which to go for.
At the keynote, Apple only divulged information specific to the USA. f you’re in the States, it will cost you $2.99 to ship your card domestically, and $4.99 to ship it to anywhere else in the world. Apple will also use the intelligent tracking services of USPS, so that it knows when your card has been delivered. As a result, as soon as the recipient has the card, you will receive a notification on your phone telling you, so you don’t have to worry about whether someone has got their birthday card on time ever again.
There was no mention of international availability when Cards was announced, but Apple already runs a very similar card and photo printing service through iPhoto on the Mac, which is available throughout the UK and the rest of Europe with very reasonable shipping prices. As the building blocks for such a service are already in place, I can’t see a reason why Cards wouldn’t be released over here, so keep your eyes out and watch for the arrival of the app on the App Store.
If you want to download Cards, it will be available for free, and should be making its way to the App Store on October 12th, the same day as iOS 5 becomes publicly available.
