Review: Touchnote
Score:
87%
For all the internet connectivity, software, shiny themes and applications, there is something that is eminently wonderful about a physical object. Touchnote, from the London based company of the same name, brings both of those worlds together and Ewan Spence reviews the S60 5th Edition application here, ending up 'thoroughly recommending' it. PS. Look out for Rafe's cute kittens....
Version Reviewed: 5.40
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Touchnote takes the pictures you have taken on your smartphone and allows you to send them to friends and family, not as an email attachment, but as a postcard, through “snail mail” and into the hands of the recipient.
Yes it takes a few days from pressing the button on your smartphone to the postcard arriving, and there's no comparison when you look at the speed of an email or a Twitpic next to a postcard, but neither is there a comparison between the value of sending something physical, something tactile, and something that says I was really thinking of you.
From a practical point of view, finding a suitable postcard, stamps and a mailbox while you are on a busy trip is not simple – I remember doing a weekend trip to Vegas and the only traditional postcard I could find was a shot of 70s Elvis at the Hilton. Thankfully the hotel had a mailbox in the depths of the casino that I could use, but when I hopefully head out to BlogWorld this year all I'll need is my Nokia X6 and the recently released S60 5th Edition version of Touchnote, finally available in the Ovi Store.
Of course the biggest part of Touchnote isn't exactly Touchnote – it's the taking of the picture that you are going to use as your postcard. That's more dependent on your skill with the camera (Steve's guide here is a good place to start). You can either take a picture “live” or use a previously snapped picture from your gallery. The application does have a component zoom and crop tool, which (while basic) is more than enough to make it all work... When you take your picture you concentrate on the picture, and when you go to make the postcard, you can concentrate on choosing the bit of the photo that works as a postcard.
Everything else a postcard needs is on the back – namely the message and address. This feels like creating an SMS or MMS, with you looking up a name in the contacts file of the handset, or populating the address fields as a one-off for a postcard; following that, you have space to add your message.
It's very much like the Messaging application, and that means missing areas (such as draft posting) that you expect to see in Messaging which aren't here make Touchnote feel a little bit cut down. I wonder if they've explored putting in deeper integration with the built in Messaging application so it feels even more familiar for the average user.
But this is a streamlined application – you launch it, choose a picture, make the message and press send. After that, your postcard is made up in London, handed to the Royal Mail, and delivery has started. As a meerkat would say, “simples!”
Touchnote also has something that many Web 2.0 services don't easily have – a way to make money. You'd expect to pay for a real world postcard, so Touchnote asking you to pay for these digitally generated postcards feels like the right thing to do. At £1 to create and post a card anywhere in the world, the cost seems perfectly sensible, and in many cases is cheaper than buying a postcard and trying to find a mailbox – it's certainly a time saving and, depending on circumstances, a monetary saving as well.
Ordering credits for additional postcards from within the application, while a little cumbersome, is convenient.
You can save a little bit more if you pre-buy credits through the Touchnote website, and you'll also find that website users have the choice of some other products to send with pictures, including greeting cards - but only the postcard is available from the mobile client.
There is so much that could be done with this application (such as those extra products being made available, better integration into the S60 UI, the ability to save draft postcards, etc) that its simplicity and success might be missed. But it shouldn't.
Touchnote does something that is wonderful, almost magical, and does it well. There's nothing confusing about it, it takes a picture, turns it into a postcard, and sends it in the post. Thoroughly recommended.
-- Ewan Spence, July 2010.
-- Thanks to Rafe and his cat for the pictures and screenshots.
Reviewed by Ewan Spence at