The GIF has taken over the Internet, with most major social media networks now supporting them and messaging services allowing users to send them to their friends.
Obviously, however, GIFs are digital — there's no way to take them offline. Or is there?
A new iPhone app called Ubersnap has been released, and it allows users to create GIFs with their phone's camera, apply filters and then print them.
Of course, you can't just print them at home. After asking for the GIF to be printed and paying the $10 required for the process, you will get a three-by-three-inch image of your GIF. Ten dollars might sound like a lot, but it turns out that printing GIFs isn't very easy to do. The people behind the app have to use special software to slice the different frames of a GIF, then place those frames into one single image. Then, to make everything animate, the team puts a lenticular sheet on top of it. It ends up looking a lot like those holographic moving trading cards from the mid-'90s.
"Each animated print is handcrafted at our studio. It takes experience to create a good animated print, and we make sure that every piece is made to the highest standard," said Boon Chin Ng from Ubersnap in an interview with Wired.
Using the app, users can capture between four and 12 frames, the maximum number of frames that can be aligned.
Of course, people have tried to bring GIFs off the Internet before. A website called GifPrint.com basically turns GIFs into printable flipbooks, however, users have to use a color printer and a stapler to make it all work.
