Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Flips Launches Visual Messaging App on iOS

In the growing world of mobile messaging apps, it’s become necessary for developers to try something different to stand out from the crowd. Enter Flips, with its self-titled \"visually-powered\" messaging app, which combines photos and videos with text and emojis to allow users to create and share flipbook-style messages with friends.

With Flips, users send messages by typing their message and assigning a picture or video to each individual element of the phrase, including punctuation and emoji. For instance, users may take a selfie of their shocked face to represent the exclamation point, or wave to the camera for a short video clip associated with the word \"Hi.\" Each image or video can be accompanied by audio recorded through the app, or this can be skipped for a silent message. The app includes a camera, or users can import content from their camera roll.

As users create text and visual pairings for individual words, punctuations or emoji (called flips), they build their in-app library, with the app suggesting these stock flips the next time the same text is used in future messages. It’s worth noting, users aren’t required to use the same pairings more than once, and pairings don’t have to make clear sense; it’s up to the sender to decide which visual representation works best for their messages.

Finally, users can add their own words to the library in their spare time. This supports combining words with punctuation marks, so, for instance, the individual “comma” flip could be skipped in future messages.

In a statement, Anthony Alfieri, co-founder and CEO of Flips, commented on the app:

Regular text messages are flat. Even with emojis, there is only so much that can be communicated and often times, simple messages are misinterpreted. Flips reenergizes your conversations and injects more fun, creativity and possibility your messages. Rather than turn to overused phrases or images, Flips lets you create your own visual vocabulary that’s completely unique and true to you.

Flips is available to download for free on the iTunes App Store.

Flips

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