If you want a safe and polite way to handle text messages received while driving, Isaiah King has a product for you.

Auto Text, a 99-cent application for Android and BlackBerry phones, lets you send an automated reply informing your texting pals that you can't respond just now. The app lets you customize the message to say you're driving, or in a meeting, or are otherwise temporarily indisposed.

King, 25, a graduate of El Camino High School in Oceanside, said he was inspired to create Auto Text after a friend was seriously injured in a texting-while-driving accident.

"I was sitting down with my parents one day and said, it would just make sense, if your phone could just text them back and say that you're driving and will text them back later, that would really be a cool app," King said.

That conversation took place about five months ago. King said he couldn't find any apps that did what he wanted, so he decided to make one. (There are other auto reply applications on the market. However, a quick Web search by the North County Times found most customer ratings were indifferent to poor.)

Because King ---- who is currently a student at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego ---- didn't have the programming skills to make the app himself, he hired a company to do it for him. After searching online, he found one that could make one to his specifications, for "a few thousand dollars."

"Over the next four months, we just put it together, as far as the look and the feel," King said.

"What I really wanted was for it to be really easy to use and quick, because I knew people wouldn't want to go through a long process and a whole bunch of menus in their cars. They would just want to hit something and it's done."

A major disappointment was not being able to get Auto Text to work in the iPhone, King said.

"Every programmer I talked to said it couldn't be done, because of their closed-source system, I believe is how they worded it," he said.

Auto Text can be downloaded on Android phones by going to Android Market. On BlackBerries, go to the app market. It can soon be bought on King's Web site, www.autotext.me, which is still under construction.

Do you know of an entrepreneurial success story or bold beginning in North San Diego County or Southwest Riverside County? Contact Bradley J. Fikes at bfikes@nctimes.com or 760-739-6641.