Apple to enter hybrid mail business with "Cards" iPhone app
The world’s largest publicly traded company is set to enter the hybrid mail business next week, creating physical mail from a digital application. Apple, the consumer electronics giant, is launching a new application for its iPhone smartphones that will allow users to create and mail personalised greetings cards using the phone’s camera.
Cards, as the app is called, will cost $2.99 per card if sent within the US and $4.99 if sent to or from anywhere else in the world.
Purchased cards will be sent out via the US Postal Service, within premium cotton paper envelopes, and Apple will then send a text message back to the sender when the card has arrived in the recipient’s local post office for delivery the next day.
Apple was not responding to our questions about the app, which is due to be launched on October 12 along with the next version of its mobile operating system, iOS 5. Executives mentioned the Cards app as one of the highlights of its new operating system during this week’s launch of the new iPhone 4S.
Although various apps already exist within the mobile world related to the production of postcards using smartphone cameras, Cards will have the substantial marketing power of Apple behind it, along with high-profile availability through the standard iPhone operating system.
Apple has been working with the US Postal Service on shipping arrangements for mail arising from the app.
Specifically, a spokesperson for USPS told Post&Parcel that the two organisations have been working on a special endicia that will allow Apple to produce postage stickers to be added to card envelopes, which will resemble stamps and signify that postage has been paid.
Cards going to international destinations will, however, bear actual USPS stamps – in the form of the 98-cent Grand Teton National Park international stamp, affixed by Stamp Services for Apple in Kansas City.
Picture Permit
Apple has been working with USPS on a stamp-like postage permit sticker for the Cards app
Patricia Licata said USPS has been developing a “Picture Permit” system for its commercial customers to use a visual or logo in place of text-based permits, as an extra branding or attention-attracting device. The project is currently in the process of being tested with a “couple of customers”, she said.
“With Apple, we took it a step further, because when they developed this programme, they wanted the permit to actually look like a stamp,” explained the USPS spokesperson, adding that the permit will not be exactly like a stamp, being without perforations on one side or phosphor tagging.
“What gets dropped in the mail is an actual card, in an envelope, with a picture permit sticker that is pre-cancelled. We are very pleased that they’ve launched this product – we think it can generate a lot of interest in First Class Mail, so we are thinking and hoping it’s going to be very successful,” added Licata.
The Cards app comes as another way that USPS has been working to boost mailing of greeting cards in the US, following its work with Hallmark on greetings cards that are sold with prepaid postage already on envelopes, meaning that consumers do not need to buy stamps separately.
It is part of USPS efforts to slow the ongoing decline in mail volumes within its lucrative First Class Mail, which has seen a 25% drop in volumes over the past five years, with a 5.9% year-on-year decline in its most recent quarter costing USPS $485m in lost revenues.
