Keep A Digital Scrapbook On Your iPhone With Flava - Plus, Win A Copy!
Flava™ - Save your moments! ($0.99) by Greenmonster, Inc. is an app that allows you to save those special moments that you want to record and reflect on later.
It seems that creating journal-like apps is the next big thing, as there have been several of them that we've covered on the site previously. However, Flava is a beautifully designed one that is worth taking a look at.
From the moment you launch the app, you'll be greeted with the "book" metaphor -- Flava is essentially a digital scrapbook. The app will show you a Moleskine-like cover, complete with the elastic band. Then it will open and put you into the main screen, with three view tabs on the bottom: Day/Entries, Month, and Settings.
The first view will show you the entries that you have made by date. To create a new entry, simply tap on the + button in the top right. A prompt will ask you what kind of entry you want to make -- you can choose Text Only, Camera, Album, Places, Music, Books, or URL.
A word of caution -- once you decide on what kind of entry it should be, you can't go back and change it. For example, if you pick Text Only, you can't decide to edit it later and add a photo. Maybe this should be something the developer can consider in the future.
Each of these different entries has its own set of options. Photos can be spruced up by adding stickers on them, following the scrapbook metaphor. You can tag books, music, locations, and even links. If it is anything besides Text Only, some sort of image will go along with it on the entries list screen.
For links, they can be viewed with the in-app browser. This browser is fairly basic, but it gives you options to navigate between pages, reload, and even send the link to Safari, email, or SMS.
When you create each entry, you can assign a symbol to it (heart, smiley face, star, or ... toast?) that can be used to filter through your entries. The filter can be accessed from the entries screen by simply pulling the screen down to reveal it at the top. You can filter by those symbols, or by the type of entry.
Tapping on any of your entries will give you the option to edit it, though you can't change the type that it is. A lock is available to prevent further changes if you feel the need to. Sharing options include Facebook and Twitter, as well as the exporting options of email, Photo Album, and SMS.
The month view allows you to view a monthly calendar, and days you have moments for are represented by dots.
There is a fairly noticeable glitch here, though. On the entries view, you'll see the correct dates listed. However, on the calendar, you'll see the entries show up a day ahead. For example, I created several entries since yesterday (so Saturday and Sunday, respectively). On the calendar, these entries show up on Sunday and Monday.
Other than that glitch, the month view is pretty handy. Moments will be listed in the bottom view, kind of like how Calendar.app shows you events in month view. You can navigate between months using the arrow buttons at the top, and the filter is available here as well.
Inside of Flava's settings, you can log out of your Facebook or Twitter accounts (though it seems you can't log in from here). The ability to set up a passcode and lock the app each time it's opened is also available. This is great if you don't want others to view your moments.
While I like Flava overall, there are some things that should be fixed. Namely the calendar glitch, but also the time. In entries, when you create them, they will be in the a.m. and p.m. format. However, when you view the entries list, they somehow changed over to military time. This is an inconsistency and should be corrected in a future update.
Additionally, I hope that there will be better ways of exporting your data in the future. Dropbox sync, Evernote, or even iTunes File Sharing -- any of these (but better if all of them) would be a great feature. The current export options just don't cut it for most users, I think.
Otherwise, Flava is a beautiful little digital scrapbook on your iPhone. For $0.99, it's not bad at all. Luckily for our awesome readers, we have four copies to giveaway!
GIVEAWAY: For your chance of winning a copy of Flava for yourself, leave a comment on this post with a story of your own moment that you're proud of (make sure you're comfortable with sharing it, too!). Make sure to leave a valid email so that I may contact you if you win. I'll be picking my favorites of the bunch.
This giveaway will be open until Wednesday, August 17 at 8 p.m. PDT.
