Raleigh, NC -- (ReleaseWire) -- 08/01/2013 --Tapsbook, a one-of-a-kind iPad app, turns photographs tucked away on digital cameras, mobile devices, computers and online photo services into organized, attractive and automatically updated photo story books that can be personalized and easily shared with family and friends with just a tap. This innovative iPad app is now available worldwide for free download through the iTunes App Store.

“In the past, families used to create physical photo albums that you could flip through and stories would be told about the photos,” remarks Sherwood Yao, Co-Founder and creator of Tapsbook. “Tapsbook provides a simple and elegant solution to do this with today’s digital medium and automatically organizes photos into easy-to-browse story books so you can spend more time with family and friends to create even more stories.”

As a first of its kind mobile visual storytelling platform, Tapsbook gathers all of a user’s online and offline pictures, and intelligently organizes them into secure, private photo books that are stored in the cloud. The app is designed to be a simple, time-saving solution for anyone with too many photos tucked away on multiple devices or online photo services such as busy parents, frequent travelers, amateur photographers, newlyweds, and more. Automatically updated with new pictures, the dynamic books ensure that friends and family won’t miss any stories in a Tapsbook user’s life.

Tapsbook is entering a very crowded space, but offers four key differentiators that together will provide a user with a unique experience that can’t be found among their competitors.

- Automatic discovery and building of stories:
TAPSBOOK: Tapsbook automatically pulls in photos from multiple sources (more to come in future updates) and organizes them into beautiful stories - no manual actions required. Beta users summarized one of the key reasons they liked Tapsbook: "automation, automation, automation".

COMPETITORS: Many apps in the market offer automation, but focus on individual photos versus storytelling. Existing photo book apps require manual organization, are not optimized for tablets, or only import from one or two sources.

- Beautiful customizable story pages:
TAPSBOOK: Tapsbook presents users with the best of both worlds: the ability to enjoy the auto-created attractive photo stories as-is or to add a personal touch to them. Users can customize the pages to their liking including backgrounds, layouts, add text to document the stories behind the photos, and add filters to their photos; they can get creative and design their own layout by repositioning/rotating the photos and text. Beta users have repeatedly asked us to provide printing option (coming soon) as an extension to the app - a clear sign that they like the output.

COMPETITORS: Most mobile photo apps present photos in dull photo grids that are not meaningful, while photo book apps confine users to preset cookie cutter templates that allow no creativity and limited customization such as adding/removing stickers.

- Instant sharing and auto-updates:
TAPSBOOK: The photo stories can be shared with family and friends by page or in its entirety with one-tap sharing to Facebook or email via a simple link. Recipients of a shared book can view it instantly since there is no big file to download, and are able to enjoy built in social features like commenting and liking. Once a book has been shared, any changes made to the original book will automatically be reflected in the shared book as well.

COMPETITORS: Very few mobile apps allow sharing of entire photo books. Those that do typically impose a page limit and require uploading and/or downloading time. There are currently no photo book apps in the market that create dynamic books which auto-updates, including the shared ones – Tapsbook is the first.

- Innovative user experience of curating photos:
TAPSBOOK: Tapsbook reimagined the photo curating experience on mobile to be easy, fast, and fun - quickly swipe photos to favorite or trash, drag and drop photos to create new stories, or like photos to add to “Best of the Year” book. Beta users called this aspect: “Insanely addictive.”

COMPETITORS: No other mobile apps allow you to go through hundreds of photos so quickly and intuitively, and working on a PC requires keyboard and mouse.

“Existing web-based and mobile apps fall short in their abilities to curate and share stories due to the tedious process their users have to go through: rating, organizing, uploading, and formatting photos into pricey and static printed photo books that are difficult to share,” said Yao. “Tapsbook is here to save consumers time, labor, and money by doing all the hard work for them within a single app while providing beautiful and up-to-the-minute photo story books that are instantly ready to share and practically free. We want to help users do more with their photos to preserve and celebrate those moments in life you want to relive again and again.”

For more information, visit Tapsbook’s website at: www.tapsbook.com

Device requirements:
- iPad
- Requires iOS 6.0 or later
- 23 MB

Pricing and availability:
Tapsbook is available for free download through the iTunes App Store in the Photo and Video category worldwide. Tapsbook offers three tiers of pricing: 1) free tier up to 500 shared photos 2) pay as you go option that allows you use your existing cloud storage starting from $1.99/1000 photos and 3) all-inclusive subscription starting from $2.99/month that includes 4GB cloud storage.