If you’ve ever wanted to have an art show, but you can’t even draw a stick figure, app iSpyArt, which works on iPhone and the 4th-gen iPod Touch, will give you a chance to be part of a showing — a virtual one anyway. Created by Cincinnati-based ArtsWave, the iSpyArt app calls upon users to submit art photography based upon different themes, creating a worldwide virtual show.
iSpyArt is an extremely basic app, so while the project it works in conjunction with might be worthwhile, the app doesn’t really lend itself to much praise. When you launch iSpyArt for the first time, you’ll be asked if the app can use your location. If you say yes, any photo you submit will be geotagged and displayed as such on the map of submissions. Each week ArtsWave will announce a new theme for the submissions — its inaugural challenge “Around the Corner” asks users to “take a photo of the art around the corner from you.”
Next, it’s time to upload a photo or take a snap of whatever you’re currently viewing. You can provide a caption using the text field if you want to provide more information. Once you’ve uploaded the photo, iSpyArt offers a button to view additional submissions. Unfortunately, this just redirects to www.TheArtsWave.org, which opens in Safari. The iSpyArt page isn’t optimized for mobile use, so viewing other submissions was a challenge, leaving me to quickly retreat to the comfort of my laptop. ArtsWave’s staff vets all submissions, and while this will maintain the integrity of the project (I sincerely hope they reject the test image I sent), there is also a delay of up to 12 hours before your image will be visible on the site. Interested contributors can also submit photos directly through the ArtsWave website.
Although the iSpyArt app makes it convenient to participate in the project, the app’s lack of any content — simple in-line access to the other submissions would suffice — makes iSpyArt tough to recommend.
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