WenWe
WenWe. Bring everyone's memories together
WenWe is a private shared-album app. Friends put the photos and videos from a holiday, a wedding or a night out into one Album, talk about them there, and turn them into a short Film with music, captions and credits. There are no ads, WenWe doesn’t sell anyone’s data, and there’s no algorithm deciding what you see. Red C Mobile built the iOS and Android apps, the Laravel platform behind them, and the software that runs the photobooths at WenWe’s PhotoLab on Dean Street in Soho.
The challenge
After a group trip, the photos are spread across a dozen phones and a few group chats. WenWe wanted one private place to collect them, and a way to turn them into something people would watch again. They also wanted a physical photobooth shop whose prints end up in the app.
That meant a lot of moving parts:
- Two native apps, iOS in Swift and Android in Kotlin, with the same features on both.
- Uploads that finish. A group album fills up with large videos sent over patchy mobile signal, and an upload has to keep going after the app is closed.
- Films from shared footage. Anyone in an Album can make their own Film from the same clips, in one of 12 styles and up to 20 minutes long.
- Three payment systems. Subscriptions go through Apple and Google, while prints, magnets and booth sessions are physical goods and go through Stripe.
- Hardware in a shop. Each booth drives a Canon DSLR and dye-sub printers, takes payment and gives every guest a digital copy while a queue of customers waits.
The solution
We built the whole product: native iOS and Android apps, a Laravel platform and the photobooth software.
iOS and Android apps
The iOS app uses SwiftUI and the Android app uses Kotlin with Jetpack Compose. Both have the same features.
- Albums that friends join by link, group or QR code, then fill with photos, videos and messages.
- Uploads that go straight to S3 and carry on in the background. Long videos are trimmed on the phone before they upload.
- Films built from your choice of clips, style, music track, orientation and end credits, shared with a public link.
- A PhotoLab shop for prints, photobooth strips, magnets and LithoPanes, paid for with Stripe.
- Subscriptions through StoreKit 2 and Google Play Billing, checked on the server. Inviting three friends unlocks three months free, using Apple promotional offers and Google Play subscription deferral.
Platform and admin
The backend is built with Laravel, and the admin portal is built with Vue and Inertia. It handles accounts, Albums, media processing with FFmpeg, PhotoLab orders and print files, and push notifications through Firebase.
When someone makes a Film, the platform puts together an ordered list of scenes (clips, captions, transitions, filters and credits) and sends it to a render service, which produces a quick preview and then the final cut.
WenWe’s team use the admin portal to manage users, orders, film styles, the music library and booth settings, and to moderate the photo wall in the shop.
Photobooth software
The booths in the Soho PhotoLab run an Electron app on Windows kiosks. A small .NET helper controls the Canon camera, and prints go to DNP dye-sub printers as 2×6 strips or 4×6 sheets. The guest screen is served by the web platform, so we can change the booth flow without visiting the shop, and the kiosk software updates itself.
- Guests pay by scanning a QR code with their phone, and a group can split the cost. Cards are only charged once the session is complete.
- Every session prints on the spot and uploads to a new WenWe Album, which guests claim by scanning a QR code.
- If the shop’s internet drops, the print still comes out. The kiosk keeps the files and retries the upload every minute.
- WenWe Connect is a matchmaking mode. A group answers five questions, and the booth pairs them with another group and shows their connect score.
The result
WenWe launched on the App Store and Google Play in July 2026. The PhotoLab booths on Dean Street print strips for visitors, and the Album each session creates brings them into the app. The iOS and Android apps, the admin portal, the booth kiosks and the in-shop photo wall all run on one platform, covered by more than 1,400 automated tests. Both apps have been updated regularly since launch. One update merged Albums and Films on both platforms, which meant migrating live records with a dry run and a rollback plan.
