Meet Quickie, A Sketch-Messaging App That Takes A Few Notes From The Apple Watch
Quickie is a new ephemeral messaging app that lets you draw sketches onscreen that will animate across your friend's smartphone screen.
Everything you send on Quickie disappears seconds after the person on the other end sees it, which is meant to emulate the fleeting nature of actual conversations. But Quickie, unfortunately, doesn't really have any differentiating features - even the sketching idea is basically the same feature Apple unveiled for its Apple Watch back in September. (You could also argue Apple took this idea from Snapchat's ability to add doodles to your pictures messages, but the point is that sending sketches to your friends is nothing new.)
Quickie included the sketching feature to allow for more intimate forms of communication, but aside from a crudely-drawn heart or smiley face, it only serves to help you remember how terrible you are at drawing. Kids might like it, but most people will opt for the app's plain-old text or photo messaging features.
Quickie's founder Erez Pilosof says a majority of people use Quickie to send text messages, which explains why you'll always find a keyboard stuck to the bottom of the screen.
The app only lets you choose eight contacts, or "besties," to ensure that you're only talking to your close friends, but there isn't any reason the app couldn't allow for more. Aside from possibly giving the app an exclusive feel, most people will just wonder why the limit exists.
Even with a simplistic and clean layout that's quite nice, Quickie will face the same struggle that the hundreds of other messaging apps out there share: Why should users download it over established competitors like Snapchat and WhatsApp? At the end of the day, Quickie doesn't offer any truly differentiating features, so most people might still prefer Snapchat, WhatsApp, or iMessage, since that's where their friends are.