Bill Atkinson’s name is synonymous with the Mac, and now he’s turned his attention to the iPhone. He has released Bill Atkinson PhotoCard, a $4.99 app that helps iPhone and iPod touch users make and send custom-designed postcards.

Atkinson was responsible for some of the most formative technology to be developed during the Macintosh’s early days. His successes include MacPaint, the legendary bitmap painting program included with early Macintoshes. He also developed QuickDraw, the Mac’s early graphics technology, and HyperCard, a hypermedia system that preceded the Web by years.

Atkinson’s interests outside of programming include nature photography, which inspired him to create Bill Atkinson PhotoCard, an application for the iPhone and iPod touch that lets you create postcards – physical ones you can have printed and mailed through a Bay Area-based printing service, or virtual ones you can e-mail to contacts. You select a photo from your photo library, crop, edit, rotate and adjust the brightness of the image, then type in a message to include with it.

You can also adorn your virtual card with stickers or add a voice annotation.

The $4.99 price includes one free printed PhotoCard (priced at $1.50); you can purchase additional ones using a PayPal account or a credit card. And, of course, you can send an unlimited number of PhotoCards by e-mail.

Bill Atkinson PhotoCard debuted in December and has since been updated with new nature photos, stickers and stamps. Bill Atkinson PhotoCard Lite is also now available if you’d like to kick the tires before dropping your money.

System requirements call for an iPhone or iPod touch running iPhone OS 3.0 or later.