Adding text to images is one of those everyday tasks that too often gets overlooked on mobile devices—a lot of the “solutions” available are clunky at best and downright unusable at worst. Phonto is the rare app that gets it right. Adding text is as easy as tapping your image; after choosing from the hundreds of available fonts, you can edit the size, placement, and color of your text, as well as its transparency, kerning, line spacing, and more. Amazingly, it’s free—although an in-app purchase will give you an ad-free experience and unlock a few more advanced features.

One of the app’s real killer features, though, is its support for custom fonts. Once installed, users can use iTunes or Dropbox to load their own font files into the app—a must-have feature for anyone with a real interest in typography. (Phonto also exists in an Android version, which I have not used.) Other apps can do some of the same things, but very few do it as well, and none provide as focused an experience as Phonto. If you ever find yourself wanting to add text to images—for a blog, for captioning personal photos, or just for making more ridiculous memes—it’s well worth the buy.

Above: An example of League Gothic, loaded into Phonto via iTunes.

An overview of the app’s features from iTunes provides a look at just how powerful it is:

★ More than 200 fonts are available.
★ You can install other fonts.
★ Text size is changeable.
★ Text color is changeable.
★ Text gradient is changeable.
★ Text’s stroke color is changeable.
★ Text’s shadow color is changeable.
★ Text’s background color is changeable.
★ Text is rotatable.
★ Text kerning is changeable.
★ Line spacing is changeable.
★ Image theme is changeable.
★ Items (baloon) are available.
★ Background image is changeable.
★ You can use not only pictures, but also plain images to write text.
★ You can share photos on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

So let me ask you a question:

(iTunes Link)