This App Is BeReal but for Music
The recent push towards social media platforms that favor authenticity over curated work is a good thing. Instagram may be home to perfectly edited photos with expertly crafted captions, but BeReal lets you show who you really are. Kiwi wants to do the same, but in order to reveal his true taste in music to all his friends, and vice versa.
Kiwi turns finding and sharing music into something like a dating app, allowing you to swipe right on the songs you like and left on the ones you don’t. When you first join, you’ll be asked to rate a few songs to gauge your tastes, but the real action begins when your friends start posting. BeReal lets you react to photos of your friends, but Kiwi insists that you tell them if you respect their tastes in music.
As with BeReal, when the Kiwi notification is triggered, everyone has to share their last played song. I hope you’ve been playing something cool and not something embarrassing (no shame, as more often than not, Kiwi has probably caught me streaming Weezer again). But unlike BeReal’s “one photo a day” mentality, Kiwi encourages you to share other tunes with friends throughout the day.
Kiwi currently works with Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer. Of course, this covers a lot of the basics, but it doesn’t include those of us who use platforms like YouTube Music and Amazon Music. However, if you have one of the aforementioned platforms, setting it up is easy: connect a streaming service to the app; choose your name, username and profile picture; and add me as a friend. (Since the app is still underground, you’ll likely have to send them an invite.) Turn on notifications to receive daily alerts and you’re done.
However, some of the regular users in the reviews are not particularly happy with the current state of the app. I thought the “dating apps” system was handy, but they preferred the old ways of doing things that let you see the history of the tracks your friends have shared with you. I have to agree – even if Kiwi tries to replicate the ephemeral nature of BeReal and only focus on songs played that day, it would be nice to have an easy way to track song recommendations over time.
However, it’s a potentially fun way to find out once a day about your friends’ current music hobbies, whether it’s the latest tracks or classics. (And now that Apple Music Classical is out, you might just find some real oldies in the mix.)