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 . iOS MessageKit was severely underutilized still to this day, and these were small products that sometimes the idea itself makes a difference, such as how Flighty succeeded with its edge on utilizing the Dynamic Island.