Filed under: iPhone, App Store
Animate your iPhone with Flickbook
No, you aren't seeing double, and yes, there is an eerily similar (and similarly named) iPhone animation app. This one -- Flickbook -- lets you create classic-style animations on your iPhone or iPod touch with a basic, no-frills simple UI. There's a large area of white space for sketching, which is done by drawing a finger across the screen. Create the next image in your sequence by touching an arrow in the bottom right-hand corner.
An 'onionskin' hint of the previous image can be seen under the current one, and a slider lets you navigate through your images. Errors are erased with a good shake. Finally, you can select from nine colors.
Playing and saving your completed animation is simple, but accurate sketching is not. I found it quite difficult to create consistent images with my finger (I was actually wishing for a stylus, believe it or not), but that could be due to my beefy paws or lack of artistic ability. Still, I'd love to meet the person who drew the gorgeous horse demo on their site.
I also wish complete animations could be exported as movie files, but perhaps that will be part of an update. It's decidedly more bare-bones than the $9.99US FlipBook, which allows you to animate on top of your photos and includes the flipbook.tv upload site for sharing your work. Still, it's fun to play with for $4.99US.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
rockyem03 said 3:54PM on 8-05-2008
Bare bones? what? this app is so much better than its competitor flipbook! The performance of the app is the kicker! it runs like a champ! and so much easier to use!
Reply
Josh Anon said 12:11AM on 8-06-2008
Hi Rockeym, I'd love it if you could use the contact form on flipbook.tv to let me know what you find hard to use about FlipBook and what we can work on improving. There have been a rash of mysterious reviews and thread posts lately with no details simply stating that Flickbook is far better than FlipBook since FlipBook is hard to use. At the same time, there are plenty of detailed reviews, including the one Erica posted, saying how great FlipBook's UI is. Thanks!
rockyem03 said 11:20AM on 8-06-2008
Actually Josh your app seems really rushed and the UI is not very well planned out, and just feels cluttered. though you have great ideas they just were not implemented very well into your UI. Seems as if you would have taken your time a bit more it might have been worth $9.99.
thermoman said 5:31PM on 8-05-2008
I wish you could export your movie somehow though =/
Reply
Ollie Wagner said 6:10PM on 8-05-2008
Hi Thermoman,
I am the designer of Flickbook and want to let you know that we have a very nice exporting feature in the works, but didn't want to rush it for the launch. It will be available with a free upgrade.
Shunnabunich said 10:44PM on 8-05-2008
System Requirements:
• Intel-based Macintosh
• Mac OS X v10.5 with iPhone SDK and emulator
• Pen tablet
:P
Reply
Ollie Wagner said 6:10AM on 8-06-2008
I created the screenshot on the app store with a Pogo Stylus (http://www.tenonedesign.com/stylus.php). Really nice for drawing! Check them out if you need a little more fidelity when drawing.
Shunnabunich said 8:42AM on 8-06-2008
I was just poking fun at the apparent difficulty of finger-drawing, but I had no idea there were actually styli out for the iPhone/iPod touch now. :) Looks neat — I might indeed check it out if I manage to score myself an iPhone.