Creator of Gas and tbh makes an app for disappearing photos via iMessage

Nikita Bier, creator of popular apps like the anonymous polling app tbh (acquired by Facebook) and the anonymous compliments app Gas (acquired by Discord), has created a new app called Explode, which focuses on disappearing messages on iMessage.

Explode works as a mini app for Apple’s Messages app. It helps you send disappearing messages to other folks. Users can see the text or images once, and then it… explodes. The app blocks users from taking screenshots as well. In a post on X, Bier said that only the sender needs to have the Explode app.

While the app is free to download, users can sign up to Explode+ for $39.99 per year or $7.99 per month to unlock all features. Paid users receive screenshot alerts, can block screenshots altogether, can replay photos that they previously sent, and can lock photo viewing after sending them.

Bier’s posts on X about Explode slant heavily towards taking a dig at Snapchat. In a post, he said after he had talks with Snap about acquiring Gas, the social media company kicked Gas off of the SnapKit developer platform.

“Two years ago, I met with Snapchat’s CEO to discuss acquiring my previous company. I openly shared how fast we were growing. Just a week later — over the Thanksgiving holiday — Snapchat kicked our app off the SnapKit platform, abruptly halting our growth,” he said.

In a screenshot of an email seen by TechCrunch, Snap sent an email to developers saying that Gas was using URL attachments to make friend recommendations without the explicit intention of the sender — Snap thought this violated its policy and attempted to replicate Snap’s functionality. Bier said that Gas operated on contacts and didn’t rely on Snap’s social graph.

However, Snap was a major growth driver for the app. In a post in October 2022, Bier said that 23% of Snapchat’s U.S. user base had viewed a Gas story. He said that sharing a Gas poll with Snapchat was placed as a primary button in the app, and Snap’s action broke the app for seven days.

Snap didn’t immediately comment on the story. Discord eventually acquired Gas in January 2023 and shut it down in November 2023.