A new app from David Barnard, the developer behind the popular Launch Center Pro, promises to be the cure for boredom. Rando, as the app is called, offers a crazy twist on our carefully curated online personas — instead of allowing you to choose a photo or GIF to share with friends, Rando will randomly pick one for you. You can also share random text quotes, then post them to Facebook or Twitter or send them via SMS.
Why would you want to do this? Well, um…why not? I mean, you’ve got time to kill. It’s the weekend. Your friends can take a joke. Right?
The app even features a “send blindly” mode, which is something like a digital dare — that is, a test to see if you’re brave enough to send a piece of content to a friend before you’re able to see what it is. (The app blurs the content until after it’s sent. Yikes!)

In case you’re not feeling up to completely random sharing, the app additionally offers a picker mode where you can select up to three photos for Rando to choose from, as well as a way to specify that you’d prefer it to pull from your “Selfies” gallery instead. Similarly, you can pick the subject for your quote (“funny,” “pets,” “friendship,” etc.) or your GIF (“lol,” “bored,” “win,” “love,” etc.) to narrow down Rando’s selection.
To be honest, Rando makes me a little uncomfortable. What exactly is on my Camera Roll? Are all my images okay for sharing? Will Rando choose some wildly inappropriate GIF? Quote?
Of course, you still have some control over the sharing process — even if you choose to “send blindly,” you’re the one who has to press “post” or “send” on the resulting social media post or text message. So really, if any embarrassment occurs, you only have yourself to blame.
“The send blindly feature is kind of a fun, gimmicky thing,” admits Barnard. “But it’s also interesting on a deeper level. Building and testing it has forced me to think a lot about what I share and why as well as what embarrassing photos might be lurking deep in my Camera Roll,” he says.
I’m not sure Rando is a sure-fire hit, but I’m curious to see what its creators come up with next.
As it turns out, Rando is not just some oddball side project from Barnard. It’s the first app to emerge from his new, bootstrapped company, formed as a way for its founders to experiment with social. Among Rando’s co-creators are Rick Messer, Jonathan Hays and Ryan DeVore.
Barnard, as noted above, is best known as the independent developer behind a number of well-received productivity apps over the years, including Launch Center Pro, Contact Center, Email+, Group Text+, Mileage Log+ and others. The apps are known for their high-quality design and attention to detail, and have their own devoted followings.
Co-founders Hays’ and DeVore’s company Silverpine has put out a number of notable apps as well, including photo-focused apps like PhotoPanes and Sunlit, as well as social apps like BeerGram. Messer, meanwhile, is a product designer at Funsize, which has done work for Groupon, HomeAway and others.
Rando might not be a roaring success — it is kind of, well…random — but it’s worth tracking the company, Modest’s, future releases.
Rando is a free download on iTunes.
