Microsoft Sprinkles app copies Facebook by copying Snapchat
Another tech giant, another app for sharing photos with funny stickers and phrases.
- Shankland covered the tech industry for more than 25 years and was a science writer for five years before that. He has deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and more.
The Microsoft Stickers app for iPhones lets you add captions, stickers and emojis to photos.
Enjoy putting funny stickers and comments on your photo then sharing it with your friends? You're probably using Snapchat to do it, but if you want to branch out, Microsoft 's new Sprinkles app offers a new option.
The app, for iPhones right now, tries to figure out what's in the photo then come up with apt witticisms and attach stickers like hats and mustaches in the right place. You can swipe through a handful of suggestions or pick your own stickers and write your own text. Face recognition tech does its best to put the props in the right place, and in my tests it did an OK job with hats and mustaches.
Of course, you can share the photo with your friends, and unlike Snapchat or Facebook's clone, Sprinkles doesn't use its own social network.
The supposed witticisms won't win any awards. My samples included, "Know what's great about Tuesday? Nothing," and seven equally cringe-worthy "I hate Tuesday" variations. The sticker search leaves a bit to be desired, too: It's not clear why the "fun" category includes what looks like a funereal urn with a Christian cross on it.
With a photo of my 2-year-old, though, the app correctly guessed his age, gave him a 42 percent Shirley-Temple lookalike score, and suggested the text "Obvi totes adorbs," which I won't argue with.