Last night over on Facebook, my friend Allyson Kapin shared details of where to find her on new mobile social app Peach.
For anyone that hasn’t been swept along by the current buzz around Peach, it’s an iOS app that, in the developer’s own words,
Peach is a fun, simple way to keep up with friends and be yourself.
The difference, and thereby selling point, of Peach is it lets you share GIFs or videos, your music, your fitness achievements, as well as “speak” to it by typing in a word, and it then gives you tools to “draw” what word you’ve typed in.
While it might sound fun, for me it simply instills a “meh”, and led to the comment on my friend’s post that my username on Peach will be @couldntgiveanymoreshits.
Of course, that’s if I could be arsed to sign up, even if I was an iPhone user or it had an Android app, neither of which appeal to me.
At What Point Do We Say Enough?
My apathy towards the app isn’t directed toward the developer, per se. Nor is it at the users who, for a few short hours, will probably get some form of enjoyment.
Instead, it’s at the apparent pointlessness of it. I mean, do we really need it?
You want GIFs and videos, try Giphy while using Slack. Or even Facebook’s new GIF features (on mobile and desktop).
Want to share music? Hook up your Spotify app to share to your social channel.
Want fitness achievements to be shared? FitBit (or even Google Fit, or similar) does this and more.
Beginning to see a certain pattern here? The apps and features (and the fun that comes with them) are already available.
Given, they’re not on a single app like Peach, which offers a more condensed approach. Yet, by all accounts, the user interface for Peach doesn’t make it an enjoyable (or intuitive) experience.
BGR published an interesting post on why Peach looks set to follow Meerkat into oblivion (Meerkat received a similar amount of love from social media and tech bloggers, before experiencing a swift decline).
From that article:
The app is derivative, presentation of content is awkward and interactions between users are weirdly cramped. If you post a gif, other users will only see the word gif on your stream. They must click to actually see what you posted. Actual dialogue between users is made as difficult as possible.
Meanwhile, over on re/code, there’s the warning about high initial interest not being followed up with continuous use, and interest from other mobile users waning due to the decline in popularity.
One of the challenges of getting such early attention is that people flock to the service and bring their lofty expectations with them. Anything generating this much attention must be phenomenal, right? It opens the app to criticism it wouldn?t normally receive. Or causes it to crash.
Given the user interface and the apathy that’s starting to show around Peach, is this another app that has its 15 seconds of fame and then disappears?
And, if it does, who cares?
Make an App That Deserves Our Time
Of course, it could be that we’re simply overloaded with apps and just don’t have the time or bandwidth to allocate to new kids on the block.
Especially if the new kid doesn’t seem to offer anything that’s really different from existing ones.
It could also be that we’re genuinely sick of all the fawning that the tech crowd seems to devote to anything that comes out of money being thrown willy nilly at yet-to-be-proven products.
Or, perhaps we’re growing up, and we actually want apps that deserve use, and deserve our time.
- Instead of creating a GIF that shows you how to light a fart, what if the app could draw a GIF and show you where you have a health issue, based on heartbeat or body data?
- Instead of sharing what music you’re listening to, why not show you how that music can be created with everyday household products (thereby making family time and fun with kids)?
Okay, they may not be the best examples – but you get the drift.
We all have times when we just want to have fun, and we all have times when we’re looking for something to do that doesn’t need a major investment of brain power.
Instead of creating another “social app” that isn’t really social, why not create one that gets true social interaction up and running?
Now that would be peachy…