It was June 10, 2010. I was a Yerba Buena Center for the annual WWDC Beer Bash with OK Go performing on stage. I got a chance to meet Bill Atkinson, the inventor of MacPaint, QuickDraw, and Hypercard. He’s a legend in the Mac community. He was there to show off his new venture, PhotoCard. I would end up using his app for the next decade to send about 200 high quality post cards to friends an family. Bill’s process was excellent. He’d found a local printer that could meet his demanding standards. He personally over saw the daily production. The resulting postcards were works of art. I used to send postcards created in his app to my grandmother. Unbeknownst to me, she kept them all and had them assembled in a book. Now there’s a three-ringed binder from a decade of my travels.
With the pandemic, he was not able to keep the business going. I got an email on March 22, 2020 stating “PhotoCard no longer prints and mails cards”. The email was signed “Thank you for using PhotoCard to share memories and heartwarming connections. Much love and gratitude, Bill Atkinson”.
Once the world opened up again, I started looking for a replacement product but have not yet found one. My requirements are simple. I want an app that will let me send a photo postcard directly to a recipient with my photo on one side and my text on the other. The ideal post card size is half of a letter-sized sheet, or 8½X5½. Bill’s app had custom postage stamps and stickers. The cards were heavy glossy stock. Bill had a goofy credit system using PayPal long before apple allowed apps to charge. That system was still in place long after rules disallowed it but I’m sure no one at Apple dared give him any grief about it. The cost was about $2 for domestic addresses and $3 for international. It was a bargain.
I continue to search for a replacement app. I have tried “Ink” and a couple other and not been happy with the results.