QuickAdvice: Facecard Christmas Edition Makes Christmas Greetings Fast and Easy
Facecard Christmas Edition ($0.99) by Virtualtwo is an app that lets you create Christmas cards with festive stickers to send to friends that show off your awesome face.
There are 10 days until Christmas, and what better way to celebrate by sending your friends and relatives a nice digital Christmas card with your cheerful face on them? Facecard Christmas Edition lets you do just that.
The overall interface for Facecard is very nice and smooth, and it's clear that the developers paid plenty of attention to detail in this app. Everything, from menus and buttons to the final result of the card, looks great and is all optimized for the iPhone 4 Retina display.
When you first launch the app, you'll be greeted with a smiling dude on a card. This is the default image that you will always see when you start up the app. To start your Christmas card-making, you'll want to get your own photo. Facecard lets you take a photo from within the app, pull one from your photo library, or even pull a profile photo off of Facebook. You can use Facebook for your own profile or a friend's.
It's important to note that this app will only accept face shots. So if it's a body shot, the app will inform you to get another photo. Interesting note - I got this message in another language, even though all the other text was in English. The developer may want to check that.
The next step is to add the stickers. There are plenty of holiday-related stickers to choose from, along with some regular items, like glasses. The magic with Facecard is that there is no need to have to place the stickers or resize them - the app does that for you with your photo. Since the photos you can use are close up face shots, the app can figure out where to place each item automatically. So it's just a matter of selecting your stickers and watch your awesome (or silly) holiday card come together.
The next step involves adding effects to the photo as well as choosing a frame. The effects on the photo include: black & white, sepia, toned-down color, and inverted. You can also just stick to good old normal if you are less daring. There are various frames to choose to add that finishing touch to your card. Frames included are: Spikes, Retro, Blue, Vintage, and Wood. Each one adds a nice and unique touch to the photo part of your card.
Once you get the photo part finished, it's time to add your holiday greeting. "Merry Christmas" is on the top of the card, but you can add a personalized greeting underneath. The message can be customized with various fonts in different sizes and colors.
Now that the photo and greeting are made, your card is complete. But what is a card for without sharing it? You have the option to send it to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, email it, or save it to your Camera Roll. It's an easy way to send nice Christmas greetings to all of your friends and family!
The app is well designed, beautiful, easy-to-use, and is a fun and fast way to spread the holiday cheer. Hopefully the developers will keep updating this app for regular anytime-of-the-year greetings and other holidays, like New Years or Valentine's Day, etc. It would make the app have more staying power on your device if it could be used year round instead of once a year.
Since it's 10 days to Christmas, this app is a great bargain at a dollar for those that haven't gotten started on spreading the cheer!
Happy holidays!
