Introducing Digital Photo Frame App: How It Started

Introducing Myself

Hi, my name is Manuel Escrig and I'm the person behind Digital Photo Frame App. I'm a solo entrepreneur trying to build a sustainable business by creating the best possible App for people who want to use their iPad devices to display and relive their memories.

Pregnancy 🤰

It all started a couple of years back in time when my wife Margo was pregnant for the first time (hint: she was pregnant with twins). I've always been a photography enthusiast but I was never interested in displaying my photos. This time was different, I was going to be father and I was sure I was going to be taking a lot of pictures and I wanted my parents who were living in another country to be up-to-date and able to see our newly-born children grow up.

That's when I started doing research and I couldn't find an App on the App Store or a hardware photo frame that could automatically synchronize with my iCloud gallery of photos. So as a Software Engineer, I decided to create one. I was definitely too optimistic, I thought that with the free time I had I could have something properly built in the time I had left.

The Twins

Moving forward a few months, the twins were about to be born and I didn't have the App as complete as I thought, so I had to re-prioritize tasks in order to launch it before they were born so my parents could have it on their old iPad in their living room and see how their first grand children develop.

After cutting some features and not spending any time in marketing nor in preparation for the launch day, the App was published on the App Store 😅. Probably one of the worst App Store launches you could find. The important thing for me was that my parents could have it on their iPad in their living room displaying pictures from iCloud Shared Stream I created for the occasion.

Memories

A couple of years later, the same iCloud Shared Stream has more than 2000 pictures, a lot of good memories and some not as good (our baby boy was born with a diaphragmatic hernia and had to spend some time in the hospital, now he is great). Looking at it now, it was definitely worth it to ship the App without all the capabilities I had wanted and keep improving it later when I had more time.

My Plan 📝

Now, I'm trying to build a sustainable business out of it. The last year I've been implementing many features requested by the users and I'm currently implementing more of them. I believe that by listening to the users we can together create a best in class App that can provide and tell many other stories around the world displaying their most precious moments.

Thank you for reading ❤️

Frequently asked questions

Keep reading

All posts →

News More Immich Photos, Less Server Setup Choose all your Immich photos, add several albums or WebDAV folders, and remove a source without deleting the originals. News Ask Siri About the Photo on Your Frame Ask Siri when and where the photo on your frame was taken, bring back a memory from this day, and start a slideshow fro… Comparisons Best Digital Photo Frame in 2026: Honest Picks by Need Which digital photo frame to buy in 2026: Aura, Skylight or Frameo, and when the iPad or Apple TV you already own is th…