It’s summer! No really.

Amidst the rain and thunderstorms of central London, we’re preparing for a summer holiday.

Holidays take planning, and being developers of software we’ve meticulously created our requirements for the beach. There are all the normal essentials:

    - the deck shoes
    - the ray bans
    - the crash diet
    - the all-over body wax
    - the twenty minute pre-tan

And now there’s a new addition, the must-not-be-forgotten updated Touchnote app for iPhone.

Just in time for summer, we’ve released a new version of our app that makes sending a postcard from the beach easier than unfolding a deckchair. Much, much easier.

The new app means that you can:

    - enhance your holiday snaps with Hipstamatic or Instagram and send them using Touchnote
    - create cards offline on the beach to send later when you’re online
    - show where you’ve been with the option to include a Google map on the back of the card
    - send a postcard to many friends in one shot

There are some other improvements too. But they just make the app faster, more attractive and easier to use.

The app works on all iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads with iOS v3.2 and above. Try it today…

Perhaps it’s too early in the relationship to speak of love, but they certainly like us. Since Saturday the Touchnote app (for mobiles and tablets) has been featured on Android Market.

As one of our team put it, “OMG! It’s like winning an oscar” (it was a developer who said this, so I might have mis-remembered whether he actually began by gushing “OMG!” like a youthful LA starlet).

Following his enthused utterance, we pulled on our finest frocks, rolled out a Touchnote blue carpet, wrote a rambling acceptance speech and waited for the paparazzi. We’re still waiting. Not that there have been many idle moments. We’re working overtime to print and post the vast number of postcards that have been ordered from new Android users.

If you’d like to try the Android app that everyone’s making an understated fuss about, head to Android Market. The latest version makes ordering your postcard much faster and works on Honeycomb tablets, such as the snazzy new models being released by HTC and Samsung.

HP webOS users (or Palm, if you’re old fashioned) gather round and listen up: we’ve got something that you’re going to love. Not only is Touchnote now available for HP webOS phones, but better still the first 50,000 postcards are free. Free! FREE!

You can download this miracle of modern technology from the App Catalog on your phone or on the web.

The initial user reviews of the new app have been fantastic. We’re slightly incredulous every time we sneak a peek at the App Catalog. Honestly, we didn’t make these reviews up or pay anyone. Here’s a sample, and there are plenty more.

SeanC “Postcards are <rude word deleted> unbelievable. Best app ever!“

WongM “I would drop all other apps if I could just have this one!“

KathleenD “I would recommend it to anyone.“

DarrellS “I love this app.“

Anonymous “I think this charges I’m not very happy” [Ooh, let's put a smile on the anonymous doubter's face. We say it again: it's free!]

For those of you that don’t know Touchnote, our HP webOS is pretty much the same as all our other apps. You select a photo and then simply select (or enter) a contact, and add a message. Touchnote then prints and posts the physical postcard. The usual fees (to cover printing and postage) are being sponsored by HP for the first 50,000 postcards delivered using the webOS app.

If a new app and free cards isn’t enough, the postcards that Touchnote will send for HP webOS users include a patent-pending feature that enables the recipient to easily thank the sender.

As our esteemed CEO, that’s Raam, put it: “We know that people love receiving photos as postcards; we also want to be sure that postcard senders get to know that their postcards were received and appreciated. Touchnote adds a unique url to every postcard sent from an HP webOS phone. This url allows the recipient to view a digital version of their postcard and send a thank you email without ever needing to know the sender’s email address.” Snappily put, Raam.

Why are you still reading this blog? Shouldn’t you be downloading the app?

We’re absolutely delighted to announce a new partnership with Buckingham Palace that will consign the customary 100^th birthday telegram to history. From this week, all centenarians will receive a personalised postcard, with a photo of the Queen, ordered from the Queen’s mobile phone.

Here’s the press release we issued earlier today:

The Queen’s spokesman, the Hon. Reginald Isner, said, “This partnership demonstrates that Her Majesty is in touch with modern trends and is not afraid to reinvent traditions. Her Majesty is extremely interested in technology and is an avid follower of Stephen Fry on Twitter. She has downloaded a number of popular apps to the royal smartphone, including Angry Birds, foursquare as well as Touchnote. She loves being able to send personalised postcards and the fact that they cost only £1.49 has gone down extremely well with the Queen’s Treasurer in these difficult financial times. Her Majesty is aware that her views carry great weight and doesn’t want to publicly support only one of the iPhone, Android, Windows Phone 7 or HP WebOS platforms. Fortunately, as the Touchnote app is available on all of these platforms, she can remain impartial.”

Raam Thakrar, CEO of Touchnote, said, “we are extremely excited about this announcement. The Queen is the ultimate British brand and we are proud to help the Palace in any way possible. We will start showing the Royal Warrant in our apps, on our products and on the Touchnote website from next week.”

If you’re approaching your hundredth birthday, look out for the Royal postcard.

Never mind mobile phones and tablets, how about an Android-powered cake? Mmmmmmm. What an amazing spongey creation!

And there was a reason for this marvellous cake. Though sallow in significance alongside our baked droid, we have released a beautiful new version of the Touchnote app (for Android phones).

You can download our new app from the Android Marketplace. Give it a go. Let us know what you think. We’re hoping that you’ll say the interface and photo editing are fun, the payments with PayPal and credit cards are super easy and the new postbox concept (that saves cards and sends them when you next have a connection) is ingenious. That’s what we’re hoping.

If you do have any comments, ideas or (heaven forfend) find a bug, let us know via android@touchnote.com.

We've changed the style of Touchnote postcards. The back of a Touchnote postcard is now more subtle and sophisticated. The front, as always, is up to you.

Henceforth, anyone fortunate enough to be the recipient of a postcard sent from Touchnote.com or using of our mobile apps (for Android, iPhone, Windows Mobile or Nokia) will receive a postcard with subtle blues and greys as the main colours on the reverse.

Postcards were previously printed in cheery reds and oranges, to reflect the happy holiday memories that postcards normally represent. However, we've seem postcards being used to express so very many different sentiments, from love to thanks to commiserations, that we've decided to allow the photo and the message to be the strongest aspects of our printed postcards and tone down our colour palette.

We hope you like the new look. If you have any ideas for further improvements to any of our cards, website or mobile apps, do let us know. We love to talk about these things!

Users have voted Touchnote the must-have entertainment app for Nokia phones in 2010. We're truly humbled, and rather pleased.

Nokia "think you will agree that the quality, value and the overall user experience that goes along with these winning apps make each and every one of them a long-term keeper that we expect you will find yourself using again and again."

If you haven't already used our app to turn photos into postcards directly from their mobile phone, it's now available for Nokia, Android, Windows Phone 7 and iPhone.

And we want even more people to use and love our Touchnote app in 2011 which is why we're already working on new, improved and easier-to-use versions. Sign-up to our newsletter at the foot of this page if you want to be the first to know about the new features we've released.

Once the wrapping paper's been cleared away and the Christmas Day left-overs eaten, it's time for the children (and perhaps you too) to start sending thank you cards for the gifts they received.

But don't waste time coaxing unenthusiastic children into writing a few lines of thanks. Make thank you cards easy and show that they really appreciate their gifts.

You can do this by using your Christmas photos to create a perfect set of thank you cards. There'll be no need for an eloquent, expressive messages, the picture will say it all. Gifts being opened. Toys being played with. Books being read. Jumpers being ...

Best of all, you won't even need to head out into the cold of January to post the cards.

Have you sent your Christmas cards for 2010?

If not, be quick, there are only six days left! And if you're pressed for time, here's a quick way to make exceptional last-minute Christmas cards using photos.

With Touchnote you can use a photo to make the front of your Christmas card tell a story. The story of my year was dominated by the birth of a baby boy, and now he features on the front of a Christmas card as a reluctant reindeer. The grandma's are going to love this card almost as much as they dote on the baby.

So if you're short of time, remember that photos of babies and children work brilliantly for Christmas cards, as do images of pets, scenery, and families.

Be creative and make people remember the card you send them this Christmas.

In this week's Touchnote Photographer of the Week blog, we turn the spotlight onto Amelia Bookstein Kyazze.

Amelias work (a selection of which you can see in our our image gallery) is a stunning blend of landscapes, culture and people. Her passion for photography began when she won a grant to shoot photographs in Nepal for six months and then present her work at Cornell University in the US."Working with refugees and in humanitarian relief in my career since the late 1990's, I have always tried to keep my photographs of people and landscapes both visually beautiful/interesting and respectful of the person and the interaction we shared."

Amelia's two favourite images from her collection are of children laughing (taken in one of South Africa's Townships in 1998) and of children singing (taken in Liberia in 1993). "In all my travels I've been repeatedly touched by how children still laugh, play and celebrate despite adverse conditions."

Touchnote customers use Amelia's photographs to create personalised cards for a wide range of occasions such as for birthdays cards, thank you cards or just beautiful Touchnote notecards. We hope to see more images from Amelia soon, so keep an eye on her work when creating your next personalised card.