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For lovers of arresting images, the Web can be a cornucopia. Finding, navigating and displaying those images, though, can be a hassle.
As is often the case on the Net, however, where you find a hassle, you'll often find a developer with a solution.
For Open Door Networks in Ashland, Ore., that solution was a visual browser called "Envision."
The browser allows Web users to view images in a variety of ways -- in a single window unmarred by text; full screen, making a Mac display into a digital picture frame; as a series of thumbnails; as a montage; as wallpaper for a desktop; or as a screensaver.
Driven by Convergence
A driver behind the creation of Envision is the convergence of computers, televisions and mobile phones.
"We created Envison because more and more Mac users were hooking up Macs to TVs, and they wanted see all these cool images full screen," Open Door President Alan Oppenheimer told MacNewsWorld.
Building on its success 
with Envision, Open Door teamed up with another Ashland firm,
Project A, to form
we-Envision and develop iPhone apps.
Not surprisingly, the joint venture's first offering for Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) mobile star was a visual browser, iEnvision. The enthusiasm of desktop users for the browser, though, didn't seem to be shared by the iPhone audience.
Simple Is Better
"To be honest, it's too complicated for most iPhone users," Oppenheimer confessed.
"Originally," he continued, "no one knew who iPhone users were going to be or what apps they were going to want. In hindsight, that one's a little bit too complicated."
It's not that iPhone jocks didn't want eye candy for their mobiles, we-Envision discovered -- they just didn't want to fiddle with the process.
"We realized people wanted simpler," Oppenheimer explained. "They wanted a one-trick pony."
In other words, they wanted to view a single category of photographs exclusively -- art images, for instance, or pics of Mustang automobiles.
iPhone Envi
That realization led to the release of a new line of "Envi" apps. They targeted subjects such as art, space, news, kids' books, comics and cars.
Unlike the Envision product, which lets a user choose any Web site for visual browsing, the 99-cent Envi apps are restricted to specific sites relevant to a particular category.
"All it is is a really way-cool display engine and a bunch of bookmarks," Oppenheimer declared.
From Coffee Table to Palm
From a handful of Envi apps, the line has mushroomed to nearly 50 offerings covering subjects ranging from shoes and haircuts to architecture and Ferraris.
A recent addition to the series departs from the typical Envi app. Rather than cull its imagery from the Web, "America at Home" includes more than 200 photos from the best-selling book by Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt.
Smolan is a former Time, Life and National Geographic photographer, as well as creator of the Day in the Life and America 24/7 series of photography books.
"I'm an old print guy, so I love big, bold coffee table books that take over your coffee table," Smolan told MacNewsWorld, "but I also like the immediacy of the iPhone app, and I think the fact that people can hear about it and download it a second later is really cool."
Missing Apps
Earlier this year, we-Envision began another line of iPhone products called the "Missing App" series. The first app in the line is called "myCard." It allows iPhone users to exchange business card information through their phones.
One problem with marketing Missing Apps, though, is that their shelf life may be short-lived; Apple abhors shortcomings in its own products.
"If they're missing, Apple may incorporate them into its applications or operating system over time," noted Oppenheimer.
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