Review: Rando
Score:
70%
Do you enjoy sharing images online? Are you the sort of person who is happy to give and receive with no credit? Is the best part of a picture the vicarious nature of sharing it online for someone else to enjoy? Then Rando, an experimental photo app from design studio ustow.
Version Reviewed: 1.0.1.0
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You will need a Rando account to use the service, and this can be set up from your handset, with the app allowing you to set up the profile, and a quick check in your email inbox to confirm your address.
Rando is very much an 'immediate' service. You have to take a picture using Rando, there's no sneaky loading of a picture taken previously and sending that. The goal is to share what is around you at that time with one other curious person somewhere in the world. Take a picture of something, send the breadcrumb, and wait for a different breadcrumb to come back from... well, who knows where!
In essence, Rando is not a tool you can gain anything on apart from a sense of 'wow, that's nice', or 'can I see a cat in a cape on your wardrobe?' There's no way to interact with the person when has sent you a picture, you can't reach out to see what people think of your picture. The only piece of information is the location that is tagged to the image - tap it and turn it over to get a map.
That's a stylish choice by the app developers, and I would love to see the numbers they are getting, both in new users and those that stay with the service.
Going with a circular image is curious as well. It challenges some photo conventions and forces you to frame the interesting thing much closer to the centre of the image than even I think is comfortable (although I'm not quite sure how the rule of three would apply in a circular image).
I think I can understand why the use of the camera is limited, but for a service built around sharing photography not having access to camera settings, filters, or images saved into your photo galleries, it seems a touch short-sighted. That's how better images can be taken, and many people like to do some post-production on their images to bring out what their eyes actually saw. Many people will want to decide on the flash, on macro/close-up modes, exposure levels, and so on. If Rando is focussed on good imaging, photographers need the necessary tools.
As an experiment, I sent out a few Rando images with some basic contact details to see if I would get anything back. Unfortunately not, my image in a bottle is still digitally floating out there.
Rando is very much an app for minimalists, there's not a lot to do except the core function. But the core function is one that many love - sharing photography, sharing images of emotion, and sharing them online with strangers. Rando has simply taken all those concepts and pushed them a little further than others have, for a beautiful result.
That there's little practical use of the app doesn't matter to me. This is a pointless pleasure, and I love it. Naturally, your mileage may vary.
Reviewed by Ewan Spence at