Will The Apple-Developed 'Cards' App Put Snail Mail Back On The Map?

Overshadowed by the release of the iPhone 4S was the announcement of Apple’s Cards app. The app, currently free in the App Store, allows users to turn their iDevice into a mobile greeting card factory.

Choose from 21 themed designs including birthday greetings and travel updates. You can personalize your card with photos and text. GPS integration will add a location stamp to all travel cards to display your current whereabouts to family and friends. The letterpress cards themselves are printed on 100 percent cotton paper, and are mailed with Apple postage. The completed greeting is really quite elegant. Notifications are sent to your phone upon delivery. The “Card history” feature automatically stores all the cards you send, so that you can reopen, edit, and forward them to additional friends and family members.

The once seemingly indispensible greeting card industry has now been replaced with e-cards, digital gift cards, and Facebook greetings. The switch has hit the United States Postal Service hard. They recently raised shipping prices for retailers and announced a one-cent increase in stamp prices. Their recent ad (click here to watch the video), which questioned the security of digital mail, went viral with it’s opening line, “A refrigerator has never been hacked.” How much of a game changer is the Cards app, really, and will it lend any aid to the a thoroughly salted snail mail? There are already several players in this space.Red Stamp, another postcard-sending app, has over 400 designs that you can personalize with text and photos. They allow users to send cards via snail mail, email, and text message. However, Cards provides one element that no other app can replicate—the Apple trademark. Cards will have the ability to bulldoze its competition the same way the iPod beat out competitors like the Microsoft Zune. Apple lovers are a loyal breed. Regardless of your app of choice, it’s nice to see mobile developers give a gentle nod to the olden days of envelope licking, paper cuts, and the simple joy associated with giving and receiving physical mail. AppPicker Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Pick It Up in the App Store: Cards