I saw a writeup on PostalPix over at Mashable today, and thought the app sounded very promising. It’s an app that (allegedly) makes it easy to order prints of your iPhone photos. The theory is that you can easily choose some of your lovely iPhone photos and order 4X6, 8X10 or Mousepad prints of them via the app.
This sounded good to me, so I’ve been giving it a go this morning. Sadly, my results have been terrible. The screenshot above shows the screen I am seeing the most of in the app. Each time I try to get to where I can select a photo or two to try it out with, I get the ‘Loading’ screen shown above. It has never got past this screen in all my attempts so far. I’ve tried with and without creating an account with PostalPix. I’ve restarted the iPhone and nothing changed. I have about 2,300 photos on my iPhone in the Camera Roll and Photo Library combined, so I assume this may be the cause of the loading failure – but there is no indication on the App Store page for PostalPix of any such limit.
I’ve tried reviewing the app’s FAQ to make sure I’m doing things right – and I have to say the ‘How to Use PostalpPix’ section of the FAQ is a bit of a horrible mess. Here’s the section I tried to follow to make sure I wasn’t missing something:
To order prints tap the Select Pix button in the top right corner. From here you will be able to select from the various products that we offer.
Select Pix
Tap the Prices button to view a list of our prices.
Tap the Promos button to see how we can cut our prices when you order multiple items.
Tap the icon for the product you want to select.
Then choose the pictures that you want from your album.
They’re kidding right? For starters, the button they mention in the very first point is located at the center of the app’s home screen, not the top right. The whole process seems backwards to me as well. Why do I need to go through prices and promo options before I’ve even had a chance to choose which pictures I want to order prints of? Surely the picture I choose will generally determine what size I want to print it at, so why force the size choice first?
In any case, the app won’t work at all for me – and it offers no error message or FAQ guidance on what to do if it fails to load, so I won’t spend any more time with it. If it turns out the issue is with the number of photos I have on my iPhone I’d say that’s very disappointing for a few reasons …
— 2,300 photos doesn’t strike me as that huge a number.
— If there is a limit, why does their App Store page not mention it? Or their FAQ page? Or generate an error message that gives you an idea of the problem?
Anyway, your mileage with the app may well vary and it certainly seems a very good idea to me – but the clunky interface and utter failure to work mean that I won’t be enjoying it anytime soon. Let me know in the comments if you try the app what your results are, and how many photos you have on your iPhone.
You can find PostalPix in the App Store now, and it’s a free app (you pay within the app for prints ordered).
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