With a developer named Marmot Kilt, it has to be good. Say What!?! is a unique photo manipulation app that allows iPhone and iPod touch users to make a photo “talk,” like a ventriloquist’s dummy. Select a photo to play with, chose edit from the bottom of the screen to cut a mouth into the pic and go to settings or select random to bring it to life with quirky, funny pop culture phrases and sounds. A great set of features also allows users to import their own photos and record audio to personalize the photo fun.

The sample photos built into Say What!?! include two babies, a two fish, a cat’s face, a goat, and a frog. As well, a black and white photo of a very proper old fashioned lady in a hat with a brooch, a very “Queen Mum” sort, which was my favorite to manipulate.

The built-in phrases and noises encompass a pretty wide variety. The developer seemed to have gotten great sound-alikes on some, while on others I’d swear they’re authentic. Two infamously deadpanned catch phrases, Donald Trump’s, “You’re fired” and Paris Hilton’s “That’s hot,” sound right on the money.

The noises in Say What!?! include some meows (with a Daniel The Cat from Mr. Rogers sort of repeated meow with different inflections), barks and burps, but also a lot of phrases that even a pop vulture like me couldn’t quite place. The easy ones include “I’ll be back,” “Silly rabbit, this particular cereal is just for kids,” the Bill Murray “Cinderella story” from Caddy Shack, “Go ahead, make my day,” “And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids,” “McLovin,” a Fran Drescher-esque “Oh I just love your outfit,” “The tribe has spoken,” and two variations on the obnoxious beer commercial “Wazzup.”

An innocuous bunch including “What are you lookin at,” “You got a problem with me” and “I’m not wearing any pants” don’t seem to be from anything specific. “All I can see are hairy bean poles,” “Hey, give me that taco, I need that taco,” and “All I know is you came here with nothing and you left with $20 and a belly full of pizza” confounded me. They’re labeled with single words and the hints are readily recognizable. This, as you can see, turned into its own sort of game for me.

I was dubious of Say What!?! at first, it seemed too basic and too sophomoric, but the more goofy the phrase and ill-fitting the picture, it really does illicit some laugh out loud moments.

The versatility in allowing the user to create and personalize their own combinations is fantastic, as well as options to change the sensitivity of the mouth from low to medium to high, which seems to alter how it syncs up with the syllables in the audio. My only peeve was that when using the edit feature, a square comes up to add the mouth to the photo. Its a little deceiving in that I kept trying to center it around where I wanted an opening and it took a few turns to realize that where the top of the square is placed is where the cut is made to create movement.  Simplicity of use and plenty of built-in options make Say What!?! a silly, stellar application.

Here’s a video demo of Say What!?!

For more articles like this, subscribe to the AppCraver RSS feed.

category: Entertainment, Photo Effects