Ebay
Earlier in the day we talked about Bre Pettis being labeled a ‘Game Changer’, something that really could be called that is a brand new 3Dprinting app from ebay.
We’ve already seen Amazon, Tesco and Maplin take baby steps into the new technology but eBay have gone about it in a slightly different way to just selling the printers or a service.
No, the auction website king’s foray into additive manufacturing is a little different; their app ‘ebay Exact’ allows customers to customise selected products to then be 3D printed. The app uses APIs from the big players like Sculpteo, MakerBot and Hot Pop Factory to allow users to add their own designs, photos, lettering to all manner of 3D printable products.
We expect, seeing as this is ebay after all, to see more APIs in built into the app very shortly, the likes of Shapeways, Ponoko and i.materialise will no doubt love to be involved with this sleek app from this huge company.
On a first play with the app we were able to customise an iPhone case, picking the model, colour, curvature and being able to write 'Personalize' on the back. The process took two minutes to get from app store to checkout for our 3D printed item, the cost of which is $24.88 from Sculpteo.
The apps joy is bringing all of the best designs under one roof, coupled with ebay's sleek app user interface. We suspect this is going to shake a few people up.
