These days, the closest most iPhone owners come to experiencing what it’s like to take a picture on a Polaroid instant camera is loading up the Instagram app. But a new startup is hoping to bring a built-in instant printer to your iPhone by way of a Polaroid style case, with a little dash of augmented reality on top
The startup is called Prynt, and they showed off their latest prototype to Techcrunch, who seems impressed:
The current version takes about 50 seconds from photo to printed paper and can only hold one piece of paper at a time. But the planned consumer version will hold 10-30 sheets of paper and take fewer than 30 seconds to print thanks to better hardware integration and a direct physical connection between the phone and case.
According to Prynt, the case will cost $99 when it’s made available next year on Kickstarter. It won’t just work with the iPhone, either: any flagship smartphone with a greater than 4-inch screen will be supported.
What’s truly cool about the Prynt, though, isn’t just the film printer aspect. It’s the fact that when you take a photo with the Prynt app, it doesn’t just print it off, it records a video of a few seconds around the time you clicked the button and sends it into the cloud. Later on, when you print out that photo, you can scan it with the Prynt app to bring that photo to life as a sort of augmented reality video.
This is the kind of iPhone accessory I get excited about: an up-and-comer with some bold ideas on new ways we can interact with our devices. We’ll let you know when the Prynt is available, and give our first impressions when it’s out.
Source: Techcrunch
