While it might not be as powerful as its name suggests, Layout brings a fresh style of design to the iPad, with a clean interface, brilliant menu approach, and robust color palette that rivals the most powerful desktop publishing software.
With Layout, you can create neat, modular collages with up to 16 pictures and captions, customized borders, and in-app photo enhancing. There's nothing here that hasn't been done before, but Juicy Bits takes it to a new level with a magnificent interface; photo boxes are divided with a quick swipe, and the toolbar -- one of the best I've ever used -- spins into action with a single tap.
Layout's radial menu is such a pleasure to use that I wish the developers would offer an API for it. There are eight tools to choose from, but most could have just as easily been served as gestures or buttons, and none offer any real control over your project. I can only imagine what an app like Photoshop Touch would do with such an interface.
Almost as intuitive as the menu is the color palette, which controls the shade and thickness of the frames. Most impressive is Layout's ultra-precise color picker that matches any color in your photo as your finger glides over it. Too bad that it only works on the solid-color edges; it would be nice to add more pizazz to the library of funky border styles. Perhaps the biggest disappointment, however, is Layout's handling of text. Captions can easily be added to any photo in a variety of fonts, but I would have liked the ability to turn picture frames into text boxes to add a different element to my layouts.
The bottom line. Layout has all the pieces to be the premier design app for the iPad, but it sells itself a little short with limited features and flexibility.
iPad 2 or new iPad running iOS 5.0 or later
Brilliant radial menu. Fun way to organize photos. Clever use of multitouch.
Limited features. Weak text options. Disappointing use of color palette.
