Ideal Cases App Review.

If you aren't already familiar with the ability to create your own bespoke smart phone or tablet cases then where have you been? Plenty of bloggers and their goldfish have had the opportunity to pop over to a website, create their own and showcase it on their blog and today, I'm not much different. Rather than saying 'hey hey look at my fancy new phone case', that post will come when it arrives, what I will be reviewing here is the creative process of a new app enabling you to create your case and how easy it is to use.

I've never purchased anything through an app, quite often I'd rather visit a desktop website in my phone browser than use their mobile site or app simply because I cannot get on with the user interface and find what I want. So, when I was offered the opportunity to give the Ideal Cases app a try I did have reservations, would it be me-friendly?

In short, it was! All reservations and potential tantrums could be cast aside easily as I flowed through the process from download to order confirmation without a hitch. 

• The app download was free, quick and easy. You can download directly from the app store by searching 'Ideal Cases' or via the website idealcases.com  in your phone browser.
• The app offers a fair range of smart phone and tablet options and are currently jazzing up the following devices and models: iPad (3, 2, mini) iPhone (5, 4/4s, 3) iPod (touch 4) Amazon Kindle (kindle fire 7" tablet, Kindle Paperwhite, Kindle Touch, Kindle, Kindle keyboard) Samsung (S3, S2, Note 2) Google Nexus (Nexus 7) Blackberry (Bold 9900, Bolg 9700, Curve 8520) B&N Book (Nook Touch) HTC (One X)
• You can choose from a range of case styles including leather/canvas wallet case, plastic wallet case, clip on gloss white, clip on gloss black, clip on matte black and rubber.
• Pricing is fantastic! £12.49 (as opposed to £16 and above on other websites) for a plastic clip on iPhone 5 case and FREE DELIVERY. Other cases are priced very fairly too.

The user interface and interaction is fantastic. It's simple, uncluttered and to the point; there is absolutely no room for you to get confused. The first screen you are prompted with gives you a simple three step process which leads you a third of the way to having a bespoke case. [Step 1] choose your device, [Step 2] choose your model and [Step 3] choose your case style. Once that's all done and dusted click 'Press here to start designing' and you'll be whizzed through to the next step. Throughout the app you are presented with 'hint' pop ups which give you a quick and uncomplicated low down on what each icon/button does and can be cancelled at any time.

Next is the creative process and, as you do on other websites, you see the potential outline of your chosen case with a white area that is your canvas for creativity! Images can be selected from your Facebook, Flickr or Instagram accounts or your camera roll and the image size and placement can be adjusted with typical finger gestures (smart phone gestures, not rudies. Tut). I did find one element of this restricting however, you can only insert one image. This means you can't create a 'collage' case like other case design websites or tile seamless images to create a pattern. Because of this, if a background is too short to reach the full length of the case and blurred zoomed in, you'd need to edit it in Photoshop (or a similar programme) to make it bigger and tile. However, I can understand that this may be done on a simplicity and accuracy basis as accuracy and line up on a smart phone may not be great as it's all down to your fingertips; you don't want a badly lined up phone case coming through do you? To finish it off you can pop some custom text on there with 17 fonts and plenty of colours to choose from. Fonts, colours and sizes can be changed easily through a scroll menu and in order to switch between different design elements like image and text, a layers menu is introduced.

I do think it would be great if you could have different background colours if you only wanted to feature text on the design or had a small centered image that didn't look right with a stark white background. Also, it'd be quite snazzy if you could change the colour of the case surround itself - all in good time I'm sure!

When you're finished click 'purchase' and the design saves to the shopping cart in under a minute. You have the option to create an account or simply checkout as a guest which is what I opted for and filling in your personal information is really quick and easy.

Overall, if all apps or mobile sites were this easy to use and navigate through then I would be inclined to use them more that's for sure. It was a pleasure to use and I can't wait to see what it looks like.

Discount treat: Would you like to order your own case? You can get 10% off all orders and cases until the end of June (not long now!) That means you can get a custom plastic phone case for only £11.24! Pop montageme10 in the promotional code box in the basket page using either the app or website et voila! Super-cheap custom case coming your way. Enjoy!

Stay tuned for a peep at the case when it pops through my letterbox.