Cartolina Review

Cartolina is a simple novelty app that lets you send illustrated messages to your friends via text or email. It comes stocked with nine lovely cartograms, and while it's extremely simple, there's something to be said for messages that just look pretty. Just don't expect it to do anything truly useful.

Cartolina's interface is as simple as they come. Thumbnails of the nine available cartograms appear on the screen—pretty illustrations with room for three lines of text apiece. Pick one, add your text, and send it off using email or MMS (texting)—Cartolina handles everything. The nine illustrations are all nice, though they have a very feminine feel.

An included calendar tab lets you check birthdays and other dates you've entered into the iPhone's default Calendar app, which is handy. Cartolina can also send you reminders ahead of friends' birthdays by utilizing this features combined with your Contacts app.

The app works splendidly—but is it useful? That ultimately comes down to personal taste. Cartolina certainly delivers on its simple tagline of "Send something pretty!" You can send a cartogram for someone's birthday, a holiday, as an invitation...sure, the possibilities are endless, but only if you think a pretty email sufficiently replaces a traditional card. Personally? I like Cartolina a lot better than most e-cards, but I still think that I'll stick with pen-and-paper rather than remembering "Oh, yeah, I have this app." I'd also like to see more than nine designs; though they're nice, the app could definitely benefit from variety.

But if you do want to send something pretty? Cartolina does exactly that, and the cartograms are well-illustrated and cute, so go for it!