Buzz Contacts for iPhone

Buzz Contacts takes two of your iPhone’s basic functions—mail and text—and does them better.

The $2 offering is from App Savvy, the same people who made the popular Agenda Calendar application. Buzz Contacts lets you do two things that aren’t easily done from the iPhone’s native apps: First, it lets you create contact groups so that you can easily email or text in bulk. Second, it lets you attach photos and files to your emails.

Buzz Contacts uses your phone’s native Contacts app as its foundation. It’s easy to create groups—I made one for my family—and import the people you want into that group. When you do so, the app offers you three options: Do you primarily call, email, or text that person? Once the group is made, you can send mass emails or texts just by touching the name of the group you want to message.

The app also offers the ability to attach files to an outgoing email—either from the phone’s photo library, or from a Box.net or Dropbox account.

There doesn’t appear to be a method for sending out photos in a group text, however. And for people who use their phone mainly as a phone—that is, to make voice calls—there’s not much here that the iPhone doesn’t already offer.

But for most people who want to communicate with groups—be they coworkers or family—Buzz Contacts makes the process easier and faster.

[Joel Mathis is a writer in Philadelphia.]