App of the Week: MoPho

Title: MoPho: Prints and Photo Gifts

Cost: Free (with exclusion to in-app purchases.)

Platform: Requires iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Compatible with iOS 4.3 or later.

In this day and age no one carries around an actual camera anymore, especially when the quality of our phone’s camera is just as good. Today we are all about simplifying things at our fingertips. We like that our smart phones are just that… smart and can handle more than just one function.

Everyone has tons of photos on their phones and especially teens, who constantly take “selfies” and pics of their “bffls.” There are, however, some circumstances where you would like to have an actual print copy of a photo that you love rather than risking it being deleted or lost in the god-forbid, sudden death of your phone. Enter, MoPho. MoPho is so simple and the user experience cannot be clearer. MoPho is an app that lets you print and develop your cell phone’s photo stream right from your phone! This app allows you to choose the photos you wish to print by drawing from your phone’s camera roll, Instagram, and Facebook pictures.

You can select from three main sections upon launching the app on the menu page. You can choose to order photo gifts such as a printed mug with your cat’s face, a cube of paper with an image, or even a tech accessory. Next, you can order prints from your camera roll for $0.29 for 4×4 or 4×6, $1:15 for 5×7, and $1.80 for 8×8 each. The last item on the menu page is a special section for selecting Instagram photos where they offer two photo sizes, 4×4 or 8×8, which are indicated as the best sizes for printing these filtered and border-heavy photos. Once you decide on the photo size you desire the app then prompts you to a bank consisting of all your Instagram photos. You can choose as many as you like and continue on to the checkout page. Once you are happy with your selection you may checkout. You must pay by credit card or bank card so some teens may need an adult’s permission. Once you are finished you can expect your beautiful glossy photos in your mail box the following week.

I could not believe how fast the photos were ready and how amazing my Instagram photos looked when they came to life! I have suggested this app to the teens in my library and they love it. I’m going to try to incorporate it somehow into Teen Tech Week by taking self-portraits of ourselves. The bottom line is this is a great use of technology and merging “old school” with 2013.

If you have a suggestion for an app to review let us know at yalsablogmanager@gmail.com.

Previous Apps of the Week are available in’ the archive.