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Released Stickify: A service to create physical stickers easily from your iPhone
I have released a service called Stickify that allows you to easily turn photos taken on iOS devices into physical stickers.
Service Overview
Since iOS 16, a subject lifting feature has been included as a standard feature. Additionally, since iOS 17, these lifted subject images can be pasted as stickers in various places within iOS apps.
But of course, you still want physical stickers, right? That's why I created this service. Here is how it works.
How it Works
The flow is roughly as follows:
- Lift the subject from a photo taken on an iPhone.
- Run a Shortcut from the Share menu.
- Pre-process the subject-only image and upload it to the API.
- Post from the API to SUZURI to create the sticker.
Since I prioritized the experience of being able to create stickers immediately from the Photos app, you can't even set titles; instead, all stickers are posted to the same SUZURI store account. This is a trade-off for that specific experience.
I'm thinking of eventually adding edit/delete screens to the web version (though there is still no real way to handle authentication).
Shortcuts
The iOS Shortcuts app is fascinating. You can do a wide variety of things, including integration with Web APIs like I did this time (you can even modify HTTP headers to include API keys).
Here is the shortcut I created this time. I'll document it here for future reference.
1. Process to receive images from the Share menu
It receives the image itself and resizes it (since Vercel Server Functions only accept payloads up to 4.5MB).
2. Process to POST to the API
The data is sent as multipart/form-data, just like a standard form. The API side handles it appropriately to retrieve the image.
3. Process when the API response is successful
I'm not entirely sure about the specifications of if in Shortcuts, but I struggled because I could only specify conditions based on whether a value exists or not, rather than a boolean (I might just not be using it correctly).
Therefore, I determine the result based on the presence of a key named error in the JSON returned only during errors. If there's no error, it navigates to the sales page for the created sticker on SUZURI.
4. Completion process for the entire shortcut
Whether successful or on error, it simply displays the returned message as a notification and ends.
5. Sharing the shortcut
Also, a key factor in realizing this service was the ability to share shortcuts I created with others. This is also very easy to do.
The Shortcuts app is seriously mind-blowing.
Impressions
Last night, the idea suddenly came to me before I went to bed. I started developing it then, and while doing my regular job, I released it within less than 24 hours. Since it's a very simple service, it wasn't something that would take much time to develop in the first place, but this sense of speed reminds me of the old Web 2.0 era.
I want to continue creating various things in the future. The Next.js ecosystem was quite challenging at first, but once you get used to it, everything is well-organized and very easy to use.
I'm not doing anything particularly special, but I've uploaded the code to GitHub.
Conclusion
I think it offers a pretty interesting experience, so please give it a try. Once you've made a sticker, I'd appreciate it if you could register as a user on SUZURI and make a purchase.
(*Note: I work for the company that operates SUZURI).
Discussion