Over the last couple of iterations of the iPhone, we’ve seen it develop into a pretty good camera. I can easily say that the iPhone 5 will probably become my everyday camera and video recorder. Gone are the days of having to have a separate camera and/or video camera along with your device.
Not only does the technology of the iPhone make it a good camera, it is the apps that come out for it that make it even better and more enticing to use. For example, Ptch has their own take on being able to shoot images and gives you the opportunity to display them in an easy way to show them to others. There are a handful of apps out there that do similar things to Ptch, but I haven’t seen one with its ease of use. Let’s take a closer look at it and see how it works.
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Creating Your Slideshow
When you first start to create your first slideshow on Ptch, you will want to connect to a variety of social networking services, which include Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Viddy and Google +. The reason why you want to connect to these is because this is where you will be pulling your media from to make your slideshow. It is really easy to scroll through and look at your pictures and videos then drag and drop them into the app where you can rearrange them. You can also add text to your presentation along with pictures and videos from your photo library on your iPhone.
Adding pics and video for a slideshow.
Once you are done getting all your media and putting them into the right place, you can now add a couple more things to your presentation to make it even better. You can add a style to your media to make them a little different than just the regular picture. There are nine different styles to choose from and they are nice to have; think of them like filters for your pictures and videos.
Styles for your slideshow.
Lastly, no movie presentation is complete without some kind of background music. Ptch gives you a decent variety of music to choose from to use; some of them are recent songs, a decent amount of them are tunes I had never heard of. I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t use the music that was on my iPhone, and I noticed that they had an iTunes links to buy the song if you wanted to. I am assuming that this is their way of making some money off of the app itself.
Choosing your background music.
Sharing and Social Networking
Of course, after you spend lots of time making your slideshow you are going to want to share it with your friends and family. You are given the option to email it, or share it to your social networks on Facebook and Twitter. But there is more to it than just that, you can also choose to share it on Ptch as well. They have created their own kind of social network where you can share your creations on the app as well as look at what other people make by following them.
Sharing your Ptch with others.
Very similar to the likes of Facebook and other social networks, Ptch gives you the ability to interact with others that are using the app. You can follow other people and see their Ptch’s, as well as comment, “like” and reshare their presentations. If they are using a song as their background music, you can also purchase that song on iTunes. There is nothing mind blowing about these features, and I am not quite sure if I would use them as I really don’t have other friends that use the app, and like Instagram, you really need to have others that you know to use it in order for it to be an effective social community.
Social networking features.
Mixed Feelings
After playing with this app for a little while, I have to admit that even though I really like it, I have a few mixed feelings. First, I love how easy it is to use it to make my own sildeshows and I loved that I could use both pictures and videos in them as well. Maybe it is just me, but I have found it surprising how many apps don’t let you pull in both pics and videos together — just one or the other. After using Ptch, I compared it to iMovie in that it is similar but without all of the extra features. It is definitely easier to use on the iPhone and I can see how this may be more appealing to a lot of people versus using iMovie.
On the other hand, there really wasn’t a whole lot that bothered me about the app other than the fact I couldn’t choose my own music. Where I struggled was the social aspect of Ptch, and I asked myself why there were doing it. I can guess why, and maybe it is because I have been so many of these types of apps that are trying to catch lightning in a bottle, very similar to Instagram. But the hard part is that so many of these that are coming out are trying to integrate social into it so they can hopefully gain more people to interact within it. To me, this really takes away from Ptch because it is a great, simple-to-use app for creating slideshows, and they should stick to that.
Conclusion
Whether, I agree or not with how the developers of Ptch made their app, there is one thing for sure, and that is I really enjoyed the experience of creating my own slideshows. I think if they gave us the ability to add our own music, I would be just about sold on the app. You can get it free in the App Store, so there is no loss in you going and trying it out for yourself to see if it will work for you. If you are looking for a simple way to create slideshows with your pics and videos and don’t want the hassle of iMovie, then definitely go and check this one out.