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Nikita Bier, creator of popular apps like anonymous voting app tbh (acquired by Facebook) and anonymous compliments app Gas (acquired by Discord), has created a new app called Explodewhich focuses on missing messages on iMessage.
Explode works as a mini app for Apple’s Messages app. It helps to send disappearing messages to other people. Users can see the text or image once, and then… it explodes. The app also prevents users from taking screenshots. In a post on X, Bier said that only the sender needs to have the Explode app.
While the app is free to download, users can sign up for Explode+ for $39.99 per year or $7.99 per month to unlock all features. Paid users receive screenshot alerts, can block all screenshots, can replay photos they’ve sent before, and can block viewing of photos after they’ve been sent.
Bier’s posts on X on Esplode lean heavily to take the dig to Snapchat. In one post, he said that after talking to Snap about acquiring Gas, the social media company removed Gas from the SnapKit developer platform.
“Two years ago, I met with the CEO of Snapchat to discuss the acquisition of my previous company. I openly shared how much we were growing. Just one week later – during the Thanksgiving holiday – Snapchat removed our app from the SnapKit platform, abruptly halting our growth,” he said.
In a screenshot of an email seen by TechCrunch, Snap sent an email to developers saying that Gas was using URL attachments to make friend recommendations without the explicit intent of the sender — Snap believed this violated its policy and trying to replicate the functionality of Snap. Bier said Gas operated on contacts and did not rely on Snap’s social graph.
However, Snap was a major growth driver for the app. In a post in October 2022, Bier said that 23% of Snapchat’s US user base had seen a Gas story. He said that sharing a survey of Gas with Snapchat was placed as a primary button in the app, and the action of Snap broke the app for seven days.
Snap did not immediately comment on the story. The discord eventually acquired Gas in January 2023 and closed in November 2023.
At the moment, the app is only available in the United States and other countries such as Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, United States, France, Germany and Italy.
