MagBooth Puts You On The Cover Of A Magazine
MagBooth Magazine Cover Maker ($0.99) by virtualiToy is a silly, fun app that allows you to put yourself on a “magazine cover”. Surely you’ve seen those booths at amusement parks and malls where they take your photo and create a mock-up magazine cover with it. Now you can do it yourself on your iPhone and iPod touch.
The app is quite simple to use. First, tap Covers at the bottom left corner. This brings up a wheel with dozens of fictional magazine choices, from Athlete to Werewolf. Do be aware there are some mildly suggestive themes (“Player” and “Playmate”), but the pictures in the app’s iTunes description are actually more racy than anything in the app itself. Anyway, choose your magazine cover. If you want a frame, tap the rectangle to bring up lots of colorful options.
Next, tap Banners at the bottom. This will bring up a wheel with three different types of banners: a strip across the top right corner, a circular sticker, and a two or three line exclamation such as “Special Issue!”. There are lots of choices but you can only add one of each type to your cover. You can’t move these items around, so keep their placement in mind when you’re picking a photo.
Of course, you’ll need an actual photo to use on your cover. Tap Photo at the bottom to import a photo from your album or take a photo in the app. Move the photo around with your finger, pinch to scale it and place it exactly where you want it.
Now you can add some Gloss, or texture, to your cover, by tapping the appropriate icon. Give it gloss along one edge, or make it look like folded paper, or add the illusion that one corner is being raised.
Got your cover tweaked just the way you like it? Tap Share at the bottom right corner to bring up three options: “share”, “save”, and “album”. The first option, “share”, brings up the options to share your cover via email or Facebook only. The “save” option does not save it to your camera roll as I expected; rather, the photo is saved to the “album” within the app, which you access by tapping “album”. There is no way to save your cover directly to your camera roll, you must actually mail it to yourself if you want to keep it. From the email, you can save the photo to your camera roll (by tapping and holding the image and selecting “Save Image” when the option appears).
Overall, it’s an amusing little app. It’s easy to use and the results really do look like the cover of a fictional magazine. Commemorate a special occasion or just have fun with it.
