Young German startup company HOT CHILI APPS brings iCard-style functionality to the iPhone and iPod touch. The C@rds concept also seems to have won the Apple seal of approval. On Monday of this week, “Birthday C@rds” put in a first appearance on the welcome page of the US/Canadian App Store.

Who doesn’t have happy memories of iCards, those inventive electronic postcards from Apple that could be individually personalised? iCards acquired something of a cult status. A cult, in fact, that the young German start-up company HOT CHILI APPS aim to revive with their C@rds collection. And this time, HOT CHILI APPS are making them available for people on the move. Because with their iCard-style functionality, C@rds can be sent from your iPhone or iPod touch wherever you may be in the world.

Send Love C@rds to your sweetheart(s) as you travel around the country. Or as you sit in the airport departure lounge, use one of the Birthday C@rd templates to design that (almost) forgotten birthday greeting. You can do all of this with a few fingertip touches any time, any place. For each collection, there are over 30 individually adaptable templates to which you can add text, a colour scheme and a photo (from an existing file or taken with your iPhone camera) to create your very own personal greeting.

“When Apple stopped doing iCards, this left a gap in the market,” says Farid Zendagui, one of the two founding directors of HOT CHILI APPS, in the press release. “It seemed to us that this was a gap that needed plugging, only this time with similar functionality but flexible enough to be operated by people on the move.”

The C@rds available from HOT CHILI APPS can be sent directly by e-mail, though users also have the option of waiting until they come within range of a free or low-cost wi-fi connection. “We know that public acceptance is very high from the sheer number of downloads and also the positive feedback we get via e-mail.”

In order to get as many users familiar with the C@rds product line as possible, the new collection of Halloween C@rds due to be released soon will be available for a limited period free of charge. And Holiday C@rds are now at an advanced design stage.

More info here.

Birthday C@rds (US$1.99) via iTunes’ App Store here.

Love C@rds ($1.99) via iTunes App Store here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Judge Bork" for the heads up.]