You may think at this point we have enough chatting apps in the major app stores: WhatsApp, Messenger, Kik, Viber, Line, WeChat, Skype, Signal…you name it. Some social networks have decided to add a messaging functionality as a tool to lock in users like the likes of Vine, Instagram and recently Tumblr. I’m also sure you are not active in all of them and that is why it is hard for a new chatting app to venture in the incredibly competitive messaging segment.
That is why in order for a new app to break in this competitive segment, they must offer something revolutionary that no app is currently offering. This is what Peach is trying to do, an app that was created by Vine’s co-founder: Dom Hofmann. First of all, it has the coolest URL ever: peach.cool and also has very interesting functionality built in.
Magic words
There is no abracadabra or others you see from Harry Potter like expelliarmus. Think of them as bot commands that you may have seen on Slack or Telegram. Peach has listed several magic words that you can use which include shout, rate, good-morning, rate, battery, gif, here, weather, move, meetings, safari, dice, movie, TV and game.
How do you use them? If you want to imply you are shouting (On social media, people use capital letters), use the magic word shout which will display them complete with a background colour. Rate will let you…well rate anything using the classic 1-5 star rating. If you use the song magic word, it will share whatever is playing and if people tap on it, it will open on Apple Music or Spotify.
Timeline
The coolest thing about the timeline is that you get a notification if the person is updating a status in real time. Reminds you of Facebook’s chat. As you can see, people can share the weather, their fitness milestones, photos, videos and more just like the major social networking apps.
Extra functionality
- If you are unsure of what to post, tap on the light-bulb for “inspiration.” Quite clever if I may add since it leverages on the popular light-bulb moment pop culture reference.
- The app has a cool version of Facebook’s poke where you can send them a variety of stuff like a slice of cake, kiss, wave and many more
Apparently the app is so popular, they had to fixed a crash which they explained on their Twitter account.
We're fixing a few issues that have sprung up for people with large friend lists. Should be better soon! Hope you're having a nice weekend 💕
— Peach (@peachdotcool) January 11, 2016
Sadly as of now, the app is only available on the Apple App Store but they have promised to release an Android version “very soon”
To our crazy cool Android friends, iOS is but Phase 1. We're cooking up an Android version, launching very soon. Stay tuned!
— Peach (@peachdotcool) January 9, 2016
Peach has the charm to become a hit social networking app with its inline bots functionality, cool timeline and interesting way to “poke” a friend. If you take a peek at the reviews on iTunes, people love it and are highly rating the app. I’m waiting for the Android version so that I can take a look at it in depth.
