Whether it’s fuzzy, Polaroid-style filters on Instagram or iPhone speakers disguised to look like cassette players, there’s a fascinating retro streak that runs through high tech — something that should, by rights, be as modern as it gets.
With that in mind, developers Mint Digital have come up with an intriguingly counter-intuitive app concept, which may be either genius or the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard. In an age where we can snap and view as many photos as our iPhones will store, Mint Digital’s WhiteAlbum app wants to change that, in effect turning your expensive iPhone into the equivalent of a cheap disposable camera.
You get to take just 24 photos, and you are unable to see these until the first time they arrive at your door, printed on real photo paper, at $20 per album, with free worldwide shipping.
“Too many memories are stuck in the digital world. Too many images are snapped, then never seen again,” the developers say. “With WhiteAlbum, you take pictures for you, not your network. The photos you shoot will be printed just for you to keep forever. To hold onto or to give as a gift. To hang on your fridge. Or to put in a shoebox that gets discovered in 20 years.”
It’s an idea I kind of like — although perhaps more in theory than in practice. There’s no doubt a downside to how easy it is to snap endless photos, which most of the time we only end up viewing once or twice on a tiny smartphone screen. By depriving us of what Mint Digital calls “instant gratification,” we have to think a bit more about the photos we take — and what we do with them afterward.
At the same time, doesn’t it remind you how great it was when you first got a digital camera to remove the kind of limitations you had with 24-pic photo rolls?
Via: TechCrunch
