REVIEW: Easy Release by ApplicationGap (for the iPhone)

Those who know me, know I love my iPhone – I carry it with me everywhere (yes, there too). However, as a Photographer, I’ve not really been excited about the offerings I’ve seen in the AppStore. Sure, I’ve been contacted by some vendors to try their apps, but I was so underwhelmed that I didn’t feel it was worth spending the energy to write about them – until now.

When one of the members of the photography club pointed out this cool app called Easy Release by a company called ApplicationGap, I immediately thought – hum, this could be good. Fortunately, I was right as this is the kind of game changing app that every photographer with a iPhone will want to have! Seriously, how many times have you been out shooting and found yourself ending up doing an inpromptu shoot of a pretty girl, college kids playing volleyball, a couple in love, etc…? Of course, you generally shoot first and ask questions later, and one of those questions you SHOULD be asking is - “can you sign a release”? Yet, if you are like me you frequently discover “crap, I’m out of releases” or  “dammit, I left my releases in the other bag”. While you may have just scored a great shot for your personal collection, there’s not much you can do with it without that release so you are SOL!

Finally a solution

This problem has plagued photographers for as long as lawyers and photographers have co-existed, but now there’s a great solution – Easy Release. If you have an iPhone, then you don’t go any place without that thing, so having a program that can conjure up a release on the fly is a godsend! Of course, when I first heard about it I immediately thought:

1. Yeah, but the contracts must suck
2. It’s going to be a pain to fill out all the data
3. It’s probably faster to just do it the old way
4. How am I going to get this thing off the phone?
5. It’s probably not flexible enough for my needs
6. It’s probably way too expensive
7. How are people going to sign it?

Good news boys and girls, I quickly got answers to all my questions and the results were exactly as I wished they would  be! Of course, they have most of the answers right here on their web site, but I’ll enumerate my skepticisms along with what I discovered.

1. The contracts are very good and cover both adults and minors as well as property releases. They were better than the ones I use and better than the templates on iStockPhoto, etc…
2. The first time is a little cumbersome, but it remembers past data so it’s easier moving forward (especially if you work with a previous model). In the future it will also draw from the address book so it should get even better.
3. Perhaps the typing and signing part, but the nice thing is that you can do this on the fly and in the field. You can even send an email with a PDF of the contract right there on the spot, so your model can have their copy on their phone instantly – that’s pretty slick! Even a laptop can’t do that as you’d have to have a scanner or take a picture (which isn’t this simple or clean). On an iPad it should really be fast!
4. Easy – it creates a PDF that you can mail to yourself and/or the model.
5. Sure there’s some features I wish it had, but it has more than I have now – like localized contracts! I frequently work with Asian models, so having a contract in their native language is a BIG plus!
6. Get this – it’s only $9.99! That’s dirt cheap, because you know if it were on a computer it’d be like $99 or more! This is a no brainer impulse buy (and I don’t make a penny off your purchase, so I have no incentive to encourage you to buy).
7. Simply put – with their finger! Yes, that’s right and it works much better than you’d think! Using a Pogo Stylus you can have a much better experience, but the finger method works much better than I thought it would. See below for an example (a little crude, but about the same as I give UPS and FedEx for package deliveries – WITH a stylus):

It’s more than a template

One cool thing I discovered when using this app is that it is much more than a template - it is actually smart! For example, for illustrative purposes I just chose the current date for my model’s age and it figured out this must be a newborn and that a parents signature would be required. I thought that was pretty clever, and I discovered other cases where it actually applies logic behind the scenes, so that helps limit some of the useless questions you might get from a simple template app.

Conclusion

The above animation was jacked from http://applicationgap.com/apps/easyrelease/

Overall, I’m very pleased with this app. It’s a dream app for photographers and definitely a MUST OWN. If you own a iPhone, do not delay – get it today! It’s a fantastic value for what you get, and on an iPad it would be brilliant. I do wish they offered it for Windows Mobile 7 phones, and more flexibility in the contracts for things like contract editing, TFCD/TFP, compensation, etc… would be a welcome addition. Overall, I expect those features to come with time, so this app has my full seal of approval. You can check out more screen shots of this app here, and learn more about it on ApplicationGap’s website.

Disclosure

I was provided a review copy, but I do not get any compensation for your purchases or this article. If you find this app to be useful, please consider donating to the blog as a token of your appreciation of this article.