photowerks2

Like many people nowadays, Seattle-based indie software developer Stephen Orth uses his smartphone as his primary camera. He has more than 4,000 images on his iPhone, and prefers to keep them on the device to reminisce while waiting in line or riding the bus.

stephenorth
Stephen Orth

But with that many images, finding a specific picture can be a challenge. The built-in Photos app in iOS is streamlined and simple to use, but it doesn’t fully leverage the metadata embedded in photos to categorize and group pictures. There is a map that shows where images were taken, but the built-in app doesn’t allow users to sort photos by when they were taken, for example.

Orth searched for alternatives in the App Store, and found quite a few that made better use of the metadata, but none of them was as easy to use as the built-in Photos app, and many of them were not anywhere near the same quality.

So he decided to create an app to solve the problem.

photowerksDubbed Photowerks, his new app lets users display and sort photos by when they were taken (showing month and date) or by location (city, state or country). Users can also sort and display pictures by camera make and model, to distinguish among photos taken on different devices (such as one iPhone or another).

The app was released last week as a 99 cent download for iPad and iPhone. It also includes sharing functionality. I’ve been trying it out on my phone this afternoon and it works well.

“It’s a simple app, but it makes it much easier to find and view your memories!” Orth says.

Orth is a veteran of companies including Cranium and Getty Images. Among other projects, he also developed a mobile billing and invoicing app called Timewerks.

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