We love seeing someone applying these adjectives to our app: “Fast…Efficient…Fun…Useful.”

Very cool!

Great app that is fast and efficient. Highly recommend. It can be fun to play with and also very useful in business to communicate.

— Dlsdj

Perfect for last minute birthday cards!

You know when it’s someone’s birthday and you forgot to send them a card, and sending a text seems a bit lame? This is the perfect solution, and got me out of trouble!

— Silent Disco King

Not a review from a friend, relative or colleague. A review from a complete stranger who downloaded your app and now is delivering his or her verdict to the world.

Here’s the very first PhotoVoice review that appeared in the iTunes App Store.

“This is a fun and useful app. I’ve already used it to send voice pics to clients and friends. Drop dead simple to use.” — Steve3240CBL

 ”Drop dead simple to use” especially delighted me, because we went to tremendous effort to design an iPhone app that would take no effort for someone to use.

Thanks, Steve3240CBL.

Believe it or not, being certain that you have an idea for an iPhone camera app is cause for caution, not for celebration.

As I write this, there are 500,000 iPhone apps.

No one already has an app for using your iPhone to take a photo and add your voice?

That’s like noticing there isn’t a store anywhere in your state that sells snow skis.

Maybe no one ever thought of opening a snow skis store, and there’s a pent up demand for skis in your state.

But it more likely that no one is selling skis there because no one there wants to buy them.

I thought my idea for PhotoVoice (take a picture, record your voice, tap a button, and a mini-movie instantly is made) was a good idea.

In fact, PhotoVoice appeared to be (and, it turned out, was) a unique idea for an app for iPhone cameras.

But why was no one else doing it?

Would it violate Apple’s strict rules for iPhone software architecture?

Was it simply impossible?

I doubted it was impossible. I knew what kind of file the app needed to be made from the combination of picture and sound. Because I’m not at all technically oriented, I figured if I could figure out how it should work, any good iPhone app programmer should be able to figure out how to make it work.

I found a programmer who specializes in iPhone apps. I described what I wanted my app to do.

He said, “Sure, I can do that. But I’m sure there’s already an app out there that does that.”

Minutes later: “Guess what? There’s nothing like that in the app store. I can’t believe it. A talking picture app or audio postcard app seems…Well, it seems so obvious.”

I agreed. It looked as thought the only way I’d learn why no one else had created such an iPhone app before was to go ahead and create one….

If just a few months ago you had told me I would be creating, from scratch, an iPhone app…

…I would’ve suggested you reduce your intake of hallucinogens.

I’m not a techie. I can’t write a lick of computer programming code. Not even the most basic HTML.

One day, however, I was hit by the most forceful object in the world: an idea.

“There must be lots of iPhone apps that allow you to take a picture, add your voice to it, and combine them into a little movie file,” I thought.

Kind of an iPhone postcard app, except these postcards would speak.

I did a quick online search for “iphone app talking postcard” and “iphone app picture with voice.”

Nothing.

So I searched inside the iTunes App Store.

Nothing.

I mentioned my idea to a couple of friends, including one guy who does have experiencing creating apps.

Both of those friends said, “Oh, there must already be an app like that….(tap tap tap)…Huh! I can’t find one, either.”

I truly don’t think I’m brilliant enough to have been the only person in the world to have had this idea.

If it’s such an obvious idea, what didn’t such an app already exist?

And that’s how this journey began….