Explode

Ladies and gentlemen, I pleased to announce my latest app:

Introducing Explode
· Send disappearing texts & photos inside iMessage
· Only the sender needs the app: Drop them right into your chats
· Screenshots are blocked too

Why did we build it? Explode is a spite app. Yes, an… pic.twitter.com/mGwmoN28T8

-- Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) January 14, 2025

On 250115, Nikita Bier released his newest app Explode. I was seemingly building with the exact concept, most notably:

• Disappearing messages that 100% rely on iMessage App Toolkits
• Screenshot Prevention
• App Clips integration so that the receiver doesn't need to download the app
  • (though, at the end I decided to drop this so that people will be "forced" to download, which I think has pros and cons)

I did have some nice friends to tell me about this launch:

As much as I feel ideas are worthless; in this very specific example, it required some very specific knowledge on Apple's Ecosystem, such as utilizing App Clips or Block Screenshots in iOS. iOS MessageKit was severely underutilized still to this day, and these were small remora products that sometimes the idea itself makes a difference, such as how Flighty succeeded with its edge on utilizing the Dynamic Island.

As much as I feel some sour gripe that someone else has launched a successful product, I must acknowledge that he has been working on this to create the smoothest experience possible.

I especially don't know how he got through the app store review process, considering that it technically breaks the Live Activity guidelines.

I do remember him asking on twitter how to show messages + button on a messages sheet, probably like couple months ago. So he must've been building this for months now...

Yet, it's an interesting implementation to analyze.