Until just five minutes ago, I hadn’t made a collage before in my life. Collage-making is not something I’ve intentionally avoided, but it’s not something that I’ve actively sought out, either. So, it took me a while to check out PicCollage, the collage app by Cardinal Blue, the Taiwanese-American startup that just ended a stint under the 500 Startups accelerator. They’ve removed the scissors, the glue, and the hassle from collage making to introduce millions (literally) to the world of iPad collage making – and how easy they’ve made it is almost embarrassing.
How much care it takes to make something simple is a bit counter intuitive. So, I can only imagine how much thought John Fan and the cardinal blue team have put into this app, because it’s so simple to use there is no doubt in my mind a toddler could use it.
Open up the app and you are greeted with a colorful and simple How To that introduces the four basic functions: tap to bring to front, double tap to edit, tap-n-hold to move to back, and flick to delete. The interface buttons (4 in total: browse, add photos, share, and undo) are clearly labeled and explained, and within 15 seconds you are ready to go.
Once you start, the experience is so intuitive and quick that I literally laughed at how easy it was. Composing your layout is easy and fun, and you can add photos from the camera on the fly. If you already have photos, you can add them from the iPad gallery or Facebook. You can even edit your photos individually with filters and effects. When you’re all done, publish to Facebook, Twitter, email, or save it to your gallery. Within the span of three minutes, I shot all the photos and composed them into the collage seen above.
There are a few things I could stand to see in future versions, like border options and a button that will scatter the photos randomly with a single push (or maybe a shake of the iPad?), like on Picasa, but overall it’s a pretty solid little photo tool.
I have a feeling the Cardinal Blue team must have picked up a lot of wisdom from their time under 500 Startups, and with how well produced this free app is, it shows. The $300,000 investment they’ve received from Silicon Valley investors (yes, they are hiring) is further testament to that fact, as is the fact that PicCollage is the #5 photo app on iTunes, with over 1 million downloads.
So, while yes, you may not be a collage enthusiast, it’s only because you haven’t tried PicCollage yet.
Download PicCollage for free in the iTunes store.
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