I’m a massive fan of snapping photos on my smartphone. Right now, I’m enjoying the stunning shots both the Mate 20 Pro and Pixel 3XL are capable of capturing. There’s a catch though. I capture all these incredible memories in respectable shots but rarely relive them. Generations before me couldn’t do that. They had something like 24 shots per film and to view them they had to be developed. That’s much rarer these days which is why I was really excited to try out Motif.
What is Motif?
Apple used to have a service called Apple Photo Print Products. Simply put, you could capture shots on your Apple devices, like iPhone, and then send them to Apple who would send you back various print products. In September, Apple discontinued this service but wanted to facilitate another company to take this on instead. Enter Motif.
Motif is now Apple’s printing partner and they’ve developed a plugin for the Apple Photos app on MacOS. Motif lets you print calendars, books and cards.
I got to see what creating one of these Motif Photo Books was like after my recent trip to New York.
Are Motif Photo Books Good?
My better half is usually the creative one, but still, I wanted to create a photo album of our trip to New York as a surprise for her. That meant I was on my own with a couple of hundred photos and the Motif add-on for Apple Photos.
I should point out the one catch here. Motif is purely for MacOS. Obviously, I’m an Android man, but I do use a MacBook Pro so I was able to test out this process. If you don’t have a MacBook, check out Photobox.
Building the album wasn’t just easy, I actually rather enjoyed it.
You start out by choosing either a black or white album. Then, you pick out all the pictures you think you want and start popping them in. There’s a massive selection of shapes, sizes and styles and you can even add in some text with various font styles. I went for the safe option and kept all the photos, more or less, in order of our trip, with labels here and there saying where we were.
The photobook that arrived a couple of days later was really cool. I’m easy to impress, but my better half was delighted with it.
How Much Do Motif Photo Books Cost?
Motif Photo Books start at €9.99 with Photo Cards starting at 89c and Photo Calendars from €19.99. Of course, these are the basic packs with various upgrades in styles and sizes. The book I ended up getting was €42 with €8 for shipping.
So, how do I feel about the pricing? It’s not the cheapest thing in the world, but the final product is brilliant. When you’re stumped for an anniversary pressie or want to give your other half something extra special for their birthday, €50 for a very thoughtful gift that’ll definitely earn some brownie points is a bit of a no-brainer.
Motif Photo Print: The Verdict
Printing off images of a special occasion seems to be coming back into fashion again, and rightly so. Having physical photos of our trip to New York is just a lot more special than them being stored away in the cloud. I could actually see myself making a habit out of budgeting €50 of every trip to go into an album and turning these into a full collection.
If you do have a MacBook and want to give this a try, Motif is happy to give Goosed.ie readers 30% off their printing to celebrate their recent launch in Ireland. Just lash in Goosed30 in the checkout. To get started, download the Motif App from the App Store for MacOS.
