Leave Instagram to the kids. This photo app is for an older generation

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Sherish is a simple app that automatically backs up your photos and lets you be selective on who sees your photos.
Sherish is a simple app that automatically backs up your photos and lets you be selective on who sees your photos.
Photo: Sherish

The best camera is the one that is with you, so the saying goes. But if that is indeed your iPhone, what is the best photo app? You have several thousand from which to choose.

This can be particularly maddening to older generations, for whom robust digital living seems foreign and frightening. They like the ease of the smartphone camera, but they just want to share their pictures with a few people and store securely without all the extras, like locators, timelines or random followers.

Sherish – an iOS app whose name combines the words share and cherish – was developed for the older user who just wants a few functions, a couple of screens, easy album management and, of course, privacy.

Simple options for creating albums makes photos easy to find, share and store.
Simple options for creating albums makes photos easy to find, share and store.
Photo: Sherish

The 45-and-older demographic is “green pasture,” co-founder Jared Brown told Cult of Mac. “They do not have ingrained habits. They want some automated features but otherwise, they want to keep things simple. This removes some of the friction they feel.”

There is a reason developers see mobile photography as a kind of gold rush. One survey last year revealed that smartphone users are using photography apps – whether for shooting, editing, constructing albums or storing to social media – an average of 34 minutes a day, a 131 percent growth over the previous year. Instagram, the leader in a field of apps one survey last year said was about 10,000, reached the 300-member mark late last year.

Cameras continue to evolve, betters sensors, sophisticated lenses and functions once reserved for expensive specialty cameras, like panorama or 360-degree view. Developers are constantly seeking ways to maximize the camera’s quality and functions.

Alan Stanford didn’t care about all of that when he approached Brown, an Indianapolis entrepreneur who developed photo apps QuickShot and PixelPerfect. Stanford, Brown’s partner on Sherish, wanted something without complex navigation, an app that involved a couple of screen taps, sharing that did not involve the masses and safe, accessible storage.

Sherish, which launched May 1, costs users $4.99 a month for unlimited cloud storing. It is available for iPhone and iPad with desktop access for Mac, Windows and Linux. An Android version is expected to hit the Google Play store next month.

A user creates a Sherish account and automatically stores the original photo in the cloud. You can designate friends and family with whom to share, and Brown said usage will not be tracked, profiled or subjected to advertising. There’s even a button that allows a user to add a voice caption to a photo.

Sherish allows users to connect to Dropbox or social media sites, like Facebook and Flickr. Photos from there or your hard drive can then be backed up. An album based on time and place can be automatically created or a user can manually create their own albums. Photos can easily go to the nearest Walgreens drugstore for prints or a photo book.

The company also hosts a helpful blog with photography tips and quick tutorials on how to create albums and utilize the app’s functions.

Much of Sherish’s design is about privacy, the only setting. A recent survey by the University of Michigan showed 74 percent of parents have doubts about posting photos of their children on social media. It also showed how many parents post personal information that reveal a child’s location.

When a photo is stored with Sherish, an email update goes out to people you designate so that they can enjoy the photo. The recipient does not need a Sherish account to view the photo.

Only people you select can see your photos. Sherish sends an email alert and recipients do not need an account to enjoy the photos.
Only people you select can see your photos. Sherish sends an email alert and recipients do not need an account to enjoy the photos.
Photo: Sherish

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