Postcards is a simple photo sharing Windows Phone app that allows you to send a photo to random users worldwide. The interface is straightforward and the only information shared is your photo, the city where the photo was taken and any comments you add to the photo.
Postcards may not rank up there with the likes of Instagram or Fhotoroom with regards to photo sharing networks. However, if you like the randomness of seeing what is out there in the world, it might be worth a try.
Easy registration, simple interface
When you first launch Postcards you will be prompted to create a membership account. It's free and required to use the app.
The main pages for Postcards include:
- A page that lists any received postcards
- A page that will list any comments posted about the postcards you have sent
- A map view with pins on where your postcards have received postcards from
- An options page where you can view postcards you have tagged as favorites, view an About page and logout of your account.
To receive a postcard, you need to send a postcard and that process starts by tapping the "Send a Postcard" button bar on the Postcard Comments page.
The internal camera app with Postcards has a shutter buttons (hardware button works as well) and a flash control button at the top of the screen. Once you capture an image, a text box will appear already labeled with your current location that you can add a personal message to. When you have everything set just right, tap Send and your postcard will be delivered to a random Postcards member.
Shortly after you send your postcard, you will receive a postcard from a random member as well. When you receive you postcard options will be available to tag the image as a favorite, reply/comment on the postcard or report it as inappropriate.
Overall Impression
With any social network, photo sharing or otherwise, its success is dependent on the level of participation. Postcards has the potential of being an easy way to randomly share and receive photos from parts of the world you may never visit.
The Windows Phone Store description describes Postcards as a means to show the common, everyday life of people from all around the world. While the app has potential, its success is very much dependent on audience participation that seems to be very low at the moment.
As far as performance is concerned, there are a few bugs that need to be ironed out. I experienced a few crashes while transitioning from the main pages to the camera app and received postcards weren't always listed on the received postcards page.
The crashes weren't frequent enough to render the app useless but it would be nice to see the list of postcards received. These bugs may be one of the factors keeping participation down though.
Postcards is currently rated at 4.5 Stars in the Windows Phone Store. Until the performance bugs get ironed out, we see this rating a little on the high side.
- Postcards - Windows Phone 8 - 2MB - Free - Store Link
