Thursday 18 September 2014

Almost instaneous review: the new Project Life App

I haven't yet written anything like what I meant to about Project Life, but the release of the Project Life App may just have made it all even easier.

I put this layout together very quickly this afternoon, basically as a demonstration, and to try out the Just Add Colo(u)r kit, which is available as an in-app purchase for the grand price of $2.49 AUD.  For the Just Add Colo(u)r kit, which has been coveted by PLers the world over.  Or maybe just by me.  Who knows.

I've not been big on square photos, but I've been using Instagram more often of late, so more of my photos will be starting off as squares.  But I do love the pictures on the cards, and I'm really looking forward to playing with it.  Because $2.49!


But the point of my post is to review the Brand! New! Project Life app that was only just released a few hours ago.

The app sells for $3.49 AUD (I think?  I need to wait for the credit card statement to come through) and comes with four included kits: Kraft, Midnight, and Strawberry Core Kits, and the School themed cards.  The included layouts are designs A, C, D, K, L, N, P, and U, and Squared Away 9, 10 and 15.

In-app purchases at the moment are in the picture to the left, along with their prices in AUD: I think the Everyday Adventure edition is from the Stampin' Up collaboration?   Also, while I initially thought that this screencap from the App Store had all of the current in-app purchases, I think there are actually two other Extra Layout packages.  
When you open the app, there's a skippable video from Becky Higgins if, like me, you're just NOT a video person.  Then you get to the home screen:  

The help text will go away after a while - it disappeared for me and I had to go into the "info" section to get it back again for this screenshot.

"Make a page" is the obvious starting place, where you put pictures and cards together into traditional PL Layouts.  

"Make a collage" is how you can put smaller photos into 6x4s for easier printing, or 6x8s for the new 6x8 albums.  There's a good variety of layouts for collages in both 6x4 and 6x8, and in the 6x4 collection, some layouts I hadn't thought of using before.  I can totally see this replacing A Beautiful Mess and Frame Ur Life, which are the two apps I'm using at the moment (the ads in Frame Ur Life are driving me totally nuts and I'll be glad to dump it, but it had layouts that ABM didn't - and this app does!)  I'm also looking forward to seeing whether I can use the collages to do enlarged versions of photos to use in standard 12x12 layouts - something which I did for the layout a couple weeks ago that I haven't finished yet.

"My Library" collects your Work In Progress, completed pages and completed collages, the kits you own and then links to the additional kits available (currently Americana, Plus One, Azure, Daydreamer, Everyday Adventure, Honey, Just Add Colo(u)r, Road Trip, Seafoam, and Summer.  Becky's announcement post for the app says
"each month we’ll be releasing more collections until ultimately we’ll have almost ALL of the collections available in the app."
On to a slightly closer look at "Make a page":

Tapping on any square will zoom in and give the option of choosing a photo or a card, and once you have chosen "card" instead of photo, which kit and then which card you want.

You can drag and drop photos to swap them between positions, which I love because it's just like I do when I'm working on a physical layout.  And once you're done, the export/save button lets you share directly to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram or by email or sms.  The export button lets you save a full-sized layout as either 8x8 or 12x12 in the camera roll for uploading via dropbox or whatever other method you choose (which is how I got the layout at the top of this post.

Things I hope are coming:

I hope that in the future you'll be able to:

  • add text to filler cards
  • change the justification of text within a filler card - I often want a centered heading and then left justified text.  If you can do that, I haven't worked out how yet.
  • [Edit: Oh, and a plain/neutral cardstock kit, preferably included free, but I'd probably pay for it.  Especially because I'm going to use this at least as much for planning as for saved layouts.]
  • Share directly to Pinterest.
And I really hope that the Cats themed cards will be added, and soon, because it's the kittyboys' album that I do digitally.

Conclusion
I can totally see myself using this to plan out my layouts before I print my photos.  It's going to make the visualisation a breeze - I'm doing this already for last week's spread, because for Reasons I haven't yet got the photos printed up.  I can also see myself using the collage feature a LOT, especially for the couple of 6x8 albums I have.  The kittyboys' album is so going to be created on this app, and I can really see the advantage for people who haven't gone and bought umpteen Core Kits and things like that - which is why I'm already recommending it to a couple of friends who I think will love the ease and the digitalness.  Yes, I just made that word up.

It really is as great as the publicity said it would be, and the prices are so much lower than I think everyone was expecting.

Questions or requests for screencaps, ask away and I'll do my best.  I'm happy to champion this app, because I love it already.







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