Peach is the latest app to generate noise in the social media world. For a few brief days, the app enjoyed some buzz…sort of. If you weren’t watching trending topics of Twitter on January 8th, you might have missed it. If you’re not part of the iPhone crew, you definitely missed it, because the app is only available on iOS right now (they’re beta testing for android).
Android friends! Interested in testing our beta? Please take a few mins to answer some q's 👉 https://t.co/P2pO8gZ6L0 pic.twitter.com/Epv5H25iZa
— Peach (@peachdotcool) January 28, 2016
Here’s the lowdown: It’s a slick messenger app for micro updates about your life, developed by Don Hofmann, a co-founder of Vine. It’s a pastiche of a Slack, Tumblr, and Facebook/Twitter for your phone: You post about yourself, but you can also GIF, draw, shout, rate, or song anything that comes to mind with the app’s “magic” (command) words. It is not meant for online use and even the creator says the existing web version “isn’t official“.
The welcome screen when you download Peach.
Pros: Visually oriented folks and creative types will enjoy the draw feature. I had some fun with the shout command, which gives you the power to create simple but bold statements. You scroll through the feed with the same intuitive feel of Instagram, navigating a universe of content on a small screen.
Examples of GIF, Draw, and Shout features on Peach
Cons: Nobody really has a reason to be on Peach. If you like micro news, Twitter reigns. Facebook has locked down basic life updates from family and friends. Tumblr or Pinterest offers community based infinity scrolling. I draw plenty of weird things on Snapchats to friends and don’t have to worry about them sticking around (or at least I know if they do, thanks to the screenshot notification). It’s a new app and you can tell because the glitches haven’t been worked out yet. Many tech sites are already announcing the app dead on arrival after a lackluster 10 hours on the top apps list.
A coworker and I downloaded the app to try it out. She deleted it within 30 minutes, but Peach will take up space on my phone for a little longer. The app is aesthetically catered towards millennials and even more so to Gen Y, with a plethora of emojis and actions reminiscent of the Facebook “poke” that people over age 25 probably won’t be too interested in (“Hiss”? Is that the anti cat-call?). Some major names have hopped on, like the Huffington Post, but they don’t guarantee that the app will be around for the long haul. We’ll give Peach a few months before kicking it to the curb. Snapchat took years to be the platform Hillary Clinton is using to contact millennials and gen y’ers on, in addition to Twitter like everyone else. To check it out for yourself, add me @alessandrabd- because practice what you peach, right?
Hillary’s appearance on the Snapchat political story
