A trip down app memory lane
Here are a few apps that I once loved, but have since disappeared from the App Store.
YikYak
This app was the juiciest time killer of all time, especially during the workday. Geared towards college students, it had a lot of use in the D.C. area among interns and professionals. The content on Capitol Hill was just 👩🏽🍳💋
Obviously there was quite a bit of NSFW content on there, but the posts and exchanges were also frequently deep and wholesome. It eventually made a comeback, but it was never the same YikYak.
Yik Yak, once valued at $400 million, shuts down and sells off engineers for $1 million
Post Secret
This app dominated in 2011 and I was obsessed with it for its entire duration. As a long-time follower of the Post Secret blog, I found this app to be among the first really addictive social media apps. It had a fantastic design and the user-generated content was top notch and never ending. There were some reportedly really bad things that happened in the app, and I guess I was fortunate to never witness the worst. Content moderation at the time was in its infancy. It saddened me that a few bad actors ruined this truly phenomenal social app. Even when the app stopped updating, I refused to delete from my Home Screen for years, because memories.
PostSecret shuts down iPhone app due to abusive posts
KitCam
KitCam was an early photography app, and I still contend that it was one of the best photography apps to ever hit the App Store. The icon was gorgeous, the live filters were fantastic, and the whole interface of the app was in a league of its own. I will never forgive Yahoo for killing off this app.
Original Instagram
Yes, I know Instagram still exists, but it is nothing like the original Instagram app. The original Instagram was amazing; just good photographers and people taking square photos with their iPhones of random weird things. Instagram as it was in 2011 through 2013 was really about the in-the-momentness of mobile photography. It was the time before "influencer" was a thing and I miss it.
Apollo for Reddit
I loved Reddit, and I loved Apollo even more. Quite a few third-party reddit apps came and went over the years, but Apollo was the best of them all and ultimately the only one I used. When Apollo died, I stopped using Reddit.
Popular Reddit client Apollo will shut down after talks over new developer fees got 'ugly,' with allegations of blackmail
We all know what happened to Twitter. For me, Twitter was an era. I started using Twitter way back in 2006, back when you had to SMS text your tweets. I found communities on Twitter, made friends who became IRL friends. I learned, explored the world, and stayed informed. I will forever miss Twitter and what it was. X is not Twitter and it never will be. RIP Twitter. You were the vibe of an era.
