Handwritten Message

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Price: NA

Rating: Good

3.5/5

Features:

Performance:

Value:

Design:

PROS

• Variety of permutations and combinations to make the notes look cute
• Easy to create and send
• Once a paid app, but now its free

CONS

• Limited space to type the message
• You cannot save your creations

Summary

All in all, the app is a nice one to own. Sure, there a lot of apps that recognize you handwriting and can send it across as a message, but the customizable options of Handwritten Message app gives it a personal touch. Add to the fact that the app is now free instead of $0.99 and there is more incentive to give it a try!

Review

Leaving personalized hand written notes has been lost as a cute gesture thanks to the digital age of SMS, MMS, BBM, iMessage, What’s App and the plethora of other ways that people choose to stay in touch. Gone are the days when you’d find a posted note on the fridge telling you that your loved one has left the house or that message for the kids, “there’s food in the fridge”, So on and so forth.

Today we have with us an iOS app, Handwritten Message, that lets you send personalized messages that you can write on the screen using your finger. Is it the modern day version of showing cute gestures or are you better off sending the good old text?

Features: 

The app is really simple. There is a message box. You use your one finger to type and two fingers to swipe/move and pinch to zoom. The notes have a defined space, which cannot be expanded upon.

In terms of customization, there are 48 solid colour backgrounds and 30 textured backgrounds to choose from. These backgrounds are really nice and enhance the personal touch of the message. You can also change the colour of the text in the message.

For that extra personal touch, there are 60 shapes including smiley faces, roses and love hearts to choose from. To add to the finishing touches, there are 48 custom borders to choose from. With the permutations and combinations, you can really make each message look unique.

Click to enlarge

Performance:

Straight out of the box, the beauty of the message you create in the Handwritten Message app depends on how good your handwriting is. No matter how many of the available effects you apply, if your writing looks like crawling ants, your message will look bad.

One downside is that the place to write the message feels a bit cramped. But the developers have said that in the next update to the app, users will get a larger area to type in.

It is easy to type a message on the device especially since the gestures of typing with one finger and scrolling with two starts to feel natural after a bit. Beautifying the messages is also a lot of fun as you can add borders and colour the text. The only downside is that you cannot choose the location you want to put the smiley face or the heart images. Their location is fixed.

Also, you cannot erase specific text. You can undo your last typed word but if you want to erase the 1st word, you will have to undo the whole thing or clear the slate completely. You cannot save your creations either.

Once you’ve “written” your message it is very simple to send it. Hit “done” and then hit “send” and the message gets copied to the clipboard. You can then “paste” the note in iMessage, send it as an MMS or even e-mail. The message will not go via a regular SMS, as it is an image and requires to be sent as an MMS, so you may want to keep the cost of sending an MMS in mind before sending cute posted style messages to the entire world.

Specifications:

iOS only. Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 4.3 or later. 

Verdict:

All in all, the app is a nice one to own. Sure, there a lot of apps that recognize you handwriting and can send it across as a message, but the customizable options of Handwritten Message app gives it a personal touch. Add to the fact that the app is now free instead of $0.99 and there is more incentive to give it a try!

This article has been taken from Digit Magazine http://www.thinkdigit.com/