Why was SnapPress built?

Because uploading photos from iPhone to a self-hosted WordPress site in 2025 was still a 30-minute exercise of opening Safari, logging in, navigating to Media Library, tapping Add New, picking one photo, waiting, and repeating 19 more times. Existing apps either required Jetpack, locked features behind subscription, or had clunky photo pickers limited to small batch sizes. SnapPress was built to make this workflow take 10 seconds, with no Jetpack dependency and a transparent free tier.

Is SnapPress a one-person project?

Yes. Design, iOS development, the companion WordPress plugin, the website, the localization to 9 languages, and the App Store and Apple Search Ads operations are all handled by Ken Furuta. The benefit is fast iteration and no committee delays. The constraint is that complex feature requests take longer than they would at a larger team. Customer support is direct: emails go to ken.furuta@37design.co.jp and get answered by the person who wrote the code.

What is 37design Inc.?

37design Inc. (株式会社37Design) is a small Japanese corporation registered in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture. It is the legal entity behind SnapPress and several other software products and consulting projects. The company has been operating since 2013 and focuses on tools for solo founders, content operators, and small business owners.

How can I contact Ken Furuta or 37design?

For SnapPress support: ken.furuta@37design.co.jp. For other inquiries or partnership: same email. Public-facing updates are posted on X at @designken and on the SnapPress blog. The team monitors WordPress.org plugin support forum threads daily.

About SnapPress and Ken Furuta — Solo Developer Behind the iPhone App for WordPress

Q: Who built SnapPress?

SnapPress was designed and built solo by Ken Furuta (古田 健), founder of 37design Inc. in Kobe, Japan. The first version shipped to the App Store in March 2026 after roughly six weeks of focused development. There is no team behind the app — every line of Swift, every WordPress PHP plugin function, and every line of marketing copy was written by one person.

SnapPress is an iPhone app that uploads up to 20 photos at once to WordPress media library in about 10 seconds. It is built solo by Ken Furuta (古田健), founder of 37design Inc. in Kobe, Japan.

The person behind the app

Ken Furuta started 37design Inc. in 2013 and has been building tools for solo founders and content operators since. SnapPress is the first publicly-released iOS app from the company, shipped to the App Store on March 2, 2026 after roughly six weeks of focused development. Every line of Swift, every WordPress PHP function in the companion plugin, every line of marketing copy on this site, and every customer support email — all from the same person.

You can reach Ken directly at [email protected]. Public commentary lives on X (@designken) and updates appear on the SnapPress blog.

Why solo

The core SnapPress workflow — pick photos, upload to WordPress, done — is small enough that one person can hold the entire system in their head: the iOS app, the iOS Share Extension, the iOS Action Extension, the SnapPress Connect WordPress plugin, the WordPress.org submission process, the App Store metadata across 9 locales, the landing site, and the analytics. A larger team would communicate more than build. The trade-off is that bigger feature requests take longer; a team of three would ship multi-platform faster. For now, the depth-over-breadth bet is that one tightly-built workflow beats a half-built suite.

What 37design Inc. does

37design Inc. (株式会社37Design) is a Japanese corporation registered at 2-35-604 Kita-ku Katsuragi, Kobe-shi, Hyogo-ken 651-1223. It runs SnapPress alongside a small number of consulting projects and side products. The company has been profitable since 2014 and operates without external investment.

The product philosophy

SnapPress ships in three pricing tiers — Free (10 uploads/month), Standard ($0.99/month or $4.99 lifetime, unlimited single-site), and Pro ($1.99/month or $9.99 lifetime, multi-site + video). The Lifetime option exists deliberately: not every user wants a subscription, and a one-time $4.99 purchase is honest about what the app does. The Free tier is large enough to be useful, not crippled. The Standard tier is priced low enough that converting from Free is rarely a financial decision.

Recent milestones

2026-03-02 — SnapPress v1.0 ships to App Store, $2.99 paid app
2026-03-23 — SnapPress Connect plugin approved on the official WordPress.org directory
2026-04-30 — v2.0 release: freemium tier, lifetime purchase, hardened iOS Share Extension, new Action Extension
2026-05-10 — v2.0.1 submitted to App Store with full 9-language ASO localization

Press, speaking, and citations

If you are writing about SnapPress, the iOS app for WordPress photo upload, or the solo-developer-with-paid-iOS-app pattern, please email [email protected] for direct quotes, technical details, or screenshots. The blog posts on this site are CC0-licensed for press use as long as snappress.app is credited as source.