“Burst” Lets You Send Disappearing IMessages
The latest messaging app to climb the iPhone App Store charts is Explode . Explode helps you send disappearing (or “exploding”) photos to your iMessage contacts that disappear after a few seconds. Like BeReal and Snapchat, the emphasis is on quick, one-on-one exchanges that you don’t have to think too much about.
There’s another important feature here: your friends don’t have to install the app to see what you send them. However, they have to be in iMessage – that’s not something that will work on Android (you can’t even go online to view the message).
To get started, you’ll need to provide your phone number and name, and then you’ll be able to add Explode to iMessage. All you have to do is take a photo (or select one from your gallery), choose the amount of time you want it to be on screen (from one to 10 seconds), and send it. You can add text on top of the image or overlay doodles, and there’s also the option to send a text-only image with a blank background.
The recipient can click on the image to open it, and then when the allotted time is up, the image will shatter into pieces and disappear forever – it’s a pretty cool effect. Of course, a premium subscription is available: pay $7.99 per month or $39.99 per year and you’ll get extra features like screenshot locking and photo replays.
There are very few settings and options here; Explode is designed to be as simple as possible. There’s a history page where you can view pixelated versions of the images you’ve sent and check who’s viewed them, but that’s about it beyond the basic photography experience.
However, keep in mind that the app is quite aggressive when it comes to using Live Activity on the iPhone: it will display constant activity on the screen, offering a monthly premium subscription if you send three photos within an hour of first installing the app. You can disable access to interactivity for Explode (or any app) via the Apps menu in Settings, but the default behavior still feels a bit intrusive.
Explode is the work of Nikita Bir , who was previously responsible for the Gas and TBH apps, both of which allow you to send compliments and ask questions anonymously, before they were shut down after acquisition (Discord and Meta, respectively).
Disappearing photos is nothing new: it’s what Snapchat is built on, and it’s something you can do on apps like WhatsApp, Signal, and Instagram. However, Explode’s simplicity has a certain appeal since there’s nothing else in the app at all, and you don’t have to convince your friends to download the app. But if it continues to be successful, I wouldn’t be surprised if they start adding a lot of additional features to it.