When we’re not dreaming up new features, grinding irksome bugs into a fine dust or folding up paper plane heart origami* to put into your Kicksend goodie bags (coming to a mailbox near you!), we’re obsessed with finding ways to help even more people keep in touch with their loved ones.

And now we’ve arrived at another milepost in our pilgrimage: the release of Kicksend for Windows 8 devices, including desktop and tablets. 

We couldn’t be more excited to welcome our shiny new Windows baby into our flock of adorable miscreant platforms, including iOS, Android and web.

You’ve got all the functionality and design chops of Kicksend, combined with the unique features and fluid technology of Windows 8, for a photo-sending and printing experience beyond compare. Kapow!

Like any good parents, we’ve been exhaustively documenting its every step as it bravely enters into the world of Windows 8 apps. (“Honey! Get the video camera! It’s printing something to CVS!”)

Daaaaw. Our little Windows app is all grown up.

Key Features: 

★ Store Pickup - Order photo prints for one-hour pickup from over 17,000 stores across the country, including CVS, Walgreens, Target and Duane Reade.

★ Unlimited Photo Sending - Share unlimited, full-resolution photos privately with your family and friends. No social networks necessary.

★ Share Photo Albums - Send entire photo albums with a tap. Nobody ever takes just one photo. Your pictures tell a story – and size limits shouldn’t get in the way.

★ Create Conversations - Chat with your friends and family about the photos you’ve shared! Comment on photos and show your love for albums by “hearting” them.

—

I recently sat down with the brilliant and affable Anbuselvan Periannan, our resident Windows engineer with over 16 years of experience, to talk about the app.

Anbu, the coolest Windows cat in the Northern Hemisphere.

What’s one of your favorite features of the app? 

Store pickup. If a user downloads a store-specific app, like if I downloaded the Walgreens app, I can only order photo prints at Walgreens. If I download any other store-particular app, it’s the same thing. However, if I use Kicksend, I can print to any of the stores we’re partnered with. That’s a big advantage for the user. It’s essentially one app where they can get everything done, with coupon discounts when available.

How did you leverage Windows technology to build this app? 

We completely rearranged all the nice features available in Windows Metro and utilized most of the Windows 8 SDK features to create a rich photo-viewing experience for our users.

I also found that it was an interesting challenge, engineering-wise, to integrate Bing Maps into our store pickup flow, where you can locate the stores nearest to your current location or search for a store by city or zip code.

What did you enjoy the most about creating this app? 

Everything is new, in terms of Metro/WinRT. This is a brand new sandboxed SDK that Microsoft created for Windows 8 Metro app development. It wasn’t available until last year, so whatever I worked on for this app was completely new (something that I had never done before) and it was exciting.

Thanks, Anbu!

The Kicksend experience is now tailor-made for Windows 8 and it truly was a labor of love. Windows users, have at it! As always, you can let us know what you think by emailing us at contact@kicksend.com.

—

* Yes, we agree they’re very pretty.

Like a certain motherly figure in your life (we love you, Mom!*), Kicksend is always thinking of ways to make your life easier.

Android users, this one’s for you!

Say you’ve just thrown your preschooler a birthday party. Or staged a cat fashion show for the local rotary club. (We were surprised to learn the former is far more popular.)

Only the savviest of grandmothers would purchase that shirt for her grandson. Kudos, grandma! (photo credit: QT1p via flickr cc.)

Anyway, you’ve taken a ton of photos at the event. You want to use Kicksend to order photo prints so you can pick some up for yourself at a drugstore nearby, in addition to mailing these prints to your mom and grandma five states away. You love the feeling of sending them photo prints nearly as much as they love getting them from you. (Not only that, but they brag about your thoughtfulness to all their friends!)

But what if your 4G phone is limping along due to low signal strength? Or you have a Wi-Fi only tablet? Oh no! You slouch over and stare deeply into the screen like a dysfunctional magician’s hat, willing a connection to appear out of thin air. But the rabbit never quite appears, does it?!

This image may mean nothing to you now, but after you read below, return, my friend, and weep at the sheer beauty of it all.

If you’ve ever experienced this, you’ll probably be very happy to hear we’ve partnered with Open Garden, the crowdsourced mobile connectivity network. “Crowdsourced? Network? Garden?” you’re thinking. “These terms may all be old hat to you startup nerdlingers, but in English, please?”

This means Kicksend users can now print photos directly to any Walgreens, Target, CVS or Duane Reade nationwide, as well as mail photo prints to anyone’s doorstep – even if they don’t have a connection. Once you’ve installed Open Garden, you’ll get connected to all the other Open Garden-enabled devices around you, becoming part of one large mesh network which seamlessly shares Internet access and bandwidth amongst everyone.

For example, if you have Open Garden installed on your phone and tablet, your tablet can tether to your phone. Or if your phone is suffering from weak signal strength, you’ll automatically be connected to other Open Garden users around you and share in their abundant Internet – all for free!

Ooh, how can I get started? 

We love that you’re as excited as we are! You can either be proactive and download Open Garden immediately from the Google Play Store, or if you open Kicksend on a device with zero connectivity, you’ll also be prompted to get Open Garden. And that’s it!

Now you can sit back from your throne on easy street and print photos to your heart’s content. No connection? No problem.

—

*Mother’s Day is this Sunday. Don’t you forget it!

Image of NYC skyline: jahborgs via flickr cc

As anyone who’s ever listened to Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” (and more recently, Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind”) can attest, New Yorkers really do love their city.

While the Kicksend team can’t claim loyalty to one geographic region or another – we’ve got roots all over from Singapore to Maryland – we can now officially say there is another reason to love New York.

Due to popular demand from our NYC customers, Kicksend is thrilled to announce that we’ve partnered with Duane Reade, New York’s pharmacy, to offer one-hour photo printing from your phone for pickup at 75 convenient locations around the city. Whether you’re a lifelong New Yorker or just visiting for the weekend, it’s even easier for you to turn your smartphone photos into stunning, high-quality, honest-to-goodness prints in just an hour!

With the addition of Duane Reade to our other retail partners, including Walgreens, Target, and CVS, Kicksend offers one-hour printing at over 15,000 stores across the United States – more than any other app in the country. (USA! You, too, can print your heart out!)

We’re overjoyed. Why? The newest version of Kicksend is out for Android, iOS and web, but this isn’t just any update.

Minor tweaks? Bug fixes? Please. This is Kicksend 3.0 we’re talking about.

Kicksend 3.0 is unlike any Kicksend you’ve seen before. We’ve been hard at work completely redesigning the app – both inside and out – and we know you’re going to love it.

Here’s what 3.0 is about. You take photos all the time. Your family wants to see them. With our new update, sending photos is as simple as breathing. No resizing photos or texting them one by one. No more asking your grandparents to join social networks so they can see your photos. Just the ability to share your world easily and privately through photos.

Our mission has always been to make keeping in touch with your loved ones as easy as possible. We’re even closer to that goal with Kicksend 3.0 and can’t wait for you to try it.

New Features Galore:

★ Print to Family - Print photos for yourself and the people you love. You choose the prints, they choose their favorite local store for easy pickup. Gorgeous, high-quality prints in an hour! (USA only)

★ Over 15,000 Stores - We’ve partnered with CVS and Target, in addition to Walgreens (previously available) for your photo printing convenience. Over 15,000 one-hour-photos across the US to choose from!

★ Unlimited Photo Sharing - Share unlimited, full-resolution photos privately with your friends and family.

★ Share Photo Albums - Send entire photo albums with a tap. Nobody ever takes just one photo. Your pictures tell a story – and size limits shouldn’t get in the way.

★ Send to Phone - Send photos to any phone number or email address. Add your favorite contacts to People You Love.

★ Smart Album Grouping – Automatically organize your photos into albums instantly ready for sharing.

★ Set Weekly Reminders - Set weekly reminders to send photos so your loved ones never miss out.

★ Have Conversations -  Chat with your friends and family about the photos you’ve shared! Comment on photos, show your love for albums by “hearting” them and call the photo sender directly to express your thanks.

And, of course:

★ 100% private: Only share photos with the people you care about – without getting a thousand random friends involved.

★ No tech-savvy required: Easy enough for mom and dad (and grandma and grandpa!) to use without tech support or training!

★ Photos anywhere, anytime: Receive, view and download photos from any device.

• Check out the new Kicksend web app! Just login or sign up at http://kicksend.com.
• Download the latest version of the app from the Google Play Store or the App Store.
• We’re in the news! Check us out in TechCrunch, VentureBeat, The Next Web, Pando Daily and Yahoo! News.
• Read up on the press release.