A recent survey revealed that more than half of Getty Images’ customers use their mobile device to look at stock media Web sites. In response, the Seattle company has developed a free iPad app to present its imagery to buyers on the go.
Designed and developed with Seattle-based Ubermind, the app works just like a search engine: it enables image search, lightbox creation and sharing of more than 24 million images. It also has the capabilities of Getty Images’ proprietary Web site search engine, such as the ability to customize your gallery page to see all of the latest or keyword-specific images.
More importantly, it has iPad-specific features—like randomizing search results by shaking the computer or adding voice recordings to lightboxes. The company said the new app is currently the top-ranking free app in the photography category of the App Store.
For undisclosed reasons, Getty has so far stayed away from developing plugins that make it easy to use its images in online products. Tablet computing, apparently, is receiving a warmer welcome. This is not surprising: according to Forrester Research, tablet sales will reach nearly 60 million units by 2015—and the iPad is the “it” item of the moment.
Getty promises a similar iPhone app in the near future.