Lenshare offers iPhone photo sharing with audio and privacy

Many people seem to be drifting away from photo sharing systems that splash your photos all over the web for anyone to see. For some, it's an issue with Facebook and some of the other social networks, although other apps like Instagram can send photos directly without public postings. Of course iOS devices can email or iMessage any photo, but Lenshare (free) gives you a bit more.

To begin, you sign up for a free account, then snap photos or grab them from your camera roll. You can annotate the photo with a quick audio clip, and add a template like Travel or Foodie. Lenshare then accesses your address book (with permission) and allows you to select one or more people as recipients. They will get an alert, and can view the photos with audio that can be your comments, the sound of where you are, or whatever else you decide to capture.

I think the biggest plus with Lenshare is that everything is private. It's better than sending a static photo, and for many people, shooting, editing and sending videos is a bit too much trouble. Your photos are stored in the cloud, and you can retrieve them at any time.

There are a couple of negatives with Lenshare. First, people need the app to see what you send. So if they are on their computer, or another mobile device that is not iOS-based, they are out of luck. Also, there are no editing controls. That makes the app a bit less handy for quick sending of photos where you might also want to make a quick crop or small edit. Of course, you can always edit the photos with another app and then send them off from Lenshare.

Lenshare is a good idea and will find some favor among photo swappers. I'd like to see the developers find a way to not require the app for receiving -- for instance, having a website people can go to if they wish to see your photos. As it is now, Lenshare is too restricted to iOS, and although we may wish all our friends were using iPhones, that is not always the case. The developers say an Android version is coming, but they've provided no specifics on dates.

Lenshare requires iOS 7. It's iPhone-only because it uses an SMS key for signup.