Hours Of Fun Await With Make-A-Snowman
Make-A-Snowman ($1.99) by SpentakLabs is a fun holiday app for iDevice users. The app allows you to create a customized snowman that can be sent to your friends and family.
To create a snowman, tap on an image from the items menu, then resize and reposition the image to your liking. Add faces, arms, accessories, and banners to spruce up your snowman. The app has almost 200 elements that can be used to build a snowman, so there are plenty of options. While fiddling, I managed to create a traditional snowman, a Santa Claus snowman, and a bandit snowman.
While dragging, resizing, and rotating the clip-art images can be done with the traditional multitouch gestures, I also recommend using the buttons at the bottom of the screen as much as possible. The buttons allow users to flip, rotate, and arrange (from back to front) images.
One of the biggest issues I had while using the app was accidentally selecting and editing images in the process of placing new elements. Using the buttons eliminates this problem.
Make-A-Snowman currently has three different backgrounds that users can choose from. Backgrounds do not have to be selected prior to creating the snowman, they can be switched at any time using the center button on the screen.
I was impressed with the simplicity of Make-A-Snowman. The user interface has minimal clutter and the app is very easy to use. The menu is straightforward so young children should have no problems using this app.
Aside from adding additional images and backgrounds, there are two features that could be added for increased functionality. As I mentioned before, accidentally editing existing images while placing new ones is an issue; adding an undo button would counter this and eliminate a lot of frustration with the app. The second would be to move the delete button into the bottom image edit toolbar, this would make it easier to delete unwanted images.
Overall, Make-A-Snowman is a beautifully designed app that is sure to please users of all ages this holiday season. The interface is simple, intuitive, and a pleasure to use. Be sure to check out Make-A-Snowman in the App Store.
