I may be dating myself here, but I was totally one of those kids who wrote in 1337-speak all the time in high school. I blame it on Largo from the webcomic Megatokyo. Do people even speak 1337 anymore? The “leet-speak” trend is just one way that people have indulged in their love of interesting typography over the years. If you love writing your status updates in interesting fonts or formatting styles, an interesting little app called Textr lets you communicate with friends using a variety of interesting visual font styles.

What is it and what does it do

Main Functionality

Textr lets you compose text with a variety of unique emoticons and/or creative text styles. These bits of text can be copied and pasted and used in any text-based app. From within the app, you can easily craft unique-looking texts, tweets, Facebook updates, or email messages.

Pros

• Simple layout that’s easy to navigate
• Over 20 fonts available to users
• Easy to preview your message in a variety of font styles
• Also offers decorative flourishes to make “bookends” for your text messages

Cons

• Only two fonts are available for free. If you want to get the rest, the font bundle will set you back 99 cents. If you also want decorations to augment your text, that will be an additional fee.

Discussion

There are lots of creative font options available in Textr. There’s “h4x0r,” a font style that will appeal to leet-speak fans, wannabe hackers, or anyone who wants to confuse their readers for their own amusement. There’s the Greek-influenced “Herakles” font style, the bubble-tastic “Bubbles,” and a pseudo-Cryllic font called “Russian.” Braille, stretched out fonts, and mixed case fonts are also available.

Of course, you will need to make at least one in-app purchase to unlock the full glory of Textr. You get just two fonts for free at the outset. These fonts are “blockhead,” which is a sort of all-caps font, and “Mixed Case,” which alternates between upper case and lower case letters in each word.

While you can copy any Textr text into your clipboard for use in other apps, I do love that the app makes it easy to use Textr texts in other apps. From within the app, you can easily craft unique-looking texts, tweets, Facebook updates, or email messages. If you want a status update that will stand out from a sea of other updates in conventional fonts, you’d be hard-pressed to find something quite as eye-catching as a Textr text update.

Conclusion and download link

If you want status updates that set you apart from the crowd, Textr takes the agony and guesswork out of creating a message with special characters from scratch. If that appeals to you, then definitely check this app out…but be prepared to spend a buck or two unlocking some of the content options for maximum enjoyment. Overall, however, this app provides a quick way to craft status updates that stand out, and that’s pretty darn cool.

Price: Free

Version reviewed: 1.4.1

Supported OS: Requires iOS 4.3 or later

Download size: 1.1 MB

Textr on Apple App Store