Thanks to the widget that puts your friends' Live Photos on your iOS home screen, a social app called Locket jumped to the top of the App Store charts. Widget systems are often used to display information like news, weather, inspirational quotes, or photos from your own iPhone album, but the app turns it into a private social networking platform.
The idea for the app was proposed by Matt Moss, a former Apple Global Developer Conference student scholarship recipient who recently graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has been building a user research and testing platform called Hawkeye Labs.
Matt Moss says developing Locket is a personal side hustle and not his main focus. "Last summer, I gave the app to my girlfriend as her birthday present," he says. She's going back to school in the fall, so we're about to start a long-distance relationship. The process of receiving her little photos on my home screen... Seems really appealing. Just a great way to stay in touch".
The entire app development process took only 1-2 weeks and ended up using it fairly extensively with his girlfriend over the past 6 months, sending an average of 5 photos a day. Since Locket also stores the photos it sends and receives in its history section, the app also becomes a fun way to review their photos.
The app launched on New Year's Day, and as of this morning, more than 2 million users have signed up. On Sunday, Lokcet became the number one app in the U.S. app store overall, and the day before, according to Apptopia's app store data, and the day before, it became the number one social networking app. Apptopia reports that so far, there are only about 1 million installs worldwide, of which about 31 percent are from the U.S. — but its figures are only up to yesterday.
Moss attributed locket's rapid adoption to the viral spread on TikTok, where he posted a Video of Locket through his company account, where he could demonstrate the app's operation. His video received about 100,000 views in just a few days. Subsequently, other TikTok users began producing their own content, which included the custom sounds used in the app and the original Locket video.
This helps to further tout the app among TikTok's younger user base. In fact, a video made by a TikTok user in the UK garnered 5 million views in a single day. While it's common for app developers to use TikTok to drive installs at launch, Moss denies that any form of paid influencer marketing has happened here, nor has he done paid advertising on TikTok or elsewhere.