Another week, another social network! The newest kid on the block is Peach, a new app that is attempting to take the world by storm. After a rather painless 30 second signup process you’re in, with the app prompting you to say hello to the world, share a picture, and start sharing info. How much info you give is up to you, which is part of the problem—because with this platform, you can’t view stranger’s info. If you’re worried about privacy it goes even further, because like most networks you can sort your shares as public or private (friends only). As a result, it’s insular in nature.
Peach sort of operates like a mix between Facebook, Tumblr, and Snapchat. Now it isn’t predicated on “temporary messages” that disappear like the latter, but it is focused on quick chats, filled to the brim with emojis and gifs.
To facilitate this concept Peach has a ton of basic command lines that are baked in, to allow easy access to a number of different features. For instance, you can just type “gif,” and then randomly search for a topic (in my case, I tried “Daily Show”), and it’ll come up with a series of them to sift through. I was actually quite surprised at how well it worked, and usually within 10 flips or so I found one that adequately mirrored what I wanted. This is what Peach calls “magic words”—and it’s
There’s a lot more on the table, like “draw” (which queues up a mini MS Paint suite, something I wish more apps did, and only recently came to iOS’ notepad), song identification, weather, and even the ability to display or share your battery life. It’s a lot of info, but if social media has proven anything in the past decade or so, it’s that people like to share all of it, so having a platform to easily do so works in Peach’s favor.
For instance, after seeing a film, you can type “movie” then “rating,” and share a review, with Peach auto-populating all the good stuff in there to make it look presentable. This is likely something that other platforms are going to emulate in the future. Another big draw is the fact that Peach suggests items to share, reaching into the depths of your soul to ask hard-hitting questions like “who are your heroes?”
However, despite how well it works, the platform still feels empty, which as we know can break any social media community. A lot of that can be chalked up to the fact that it’s still new, though in many ways it’s already have its time in the sun. It doesn’t seem to be catching on with anyone I know both young, middle aged, or old—and I have a hard time seeing people give up Snapchat for this.
As a chatting app with some unique features Peach certainly has potential, but it’s going to need to hold people’s attention longer than a week if it hope to really compete in the social media space.
Peach can be downloaded for free in the iTunes App Store.