Most viral mobile apps of 2016: Pokemon Go, Prisma and more

Soubhik Mukherjee

2016 is the year we saw Google finally coming up with a product which competes with the iPhone in the premium segment, while Apple’s response to it was to lose the jack in iPhone 7. But both these cutting edge products will not be able to fulfill their potential without a bouquet of kickass apps which elevate the user experience, helps you sort your life, and makes paying an arm, and part of leg to buy these phones somewhat worth it.

Here’s a selection of some of the cool apps which found their way in most smartphones in 2016.

Prisma:

On the face of it a simple photo editing tool which turns your social media profile pictures into something out of a Van Gogh canvas! Popular for creating artistic effects, Prisma was launched in June 2016, and by July had a staggering 7.5 million downloads globally, with close a million active users. We all know someone will welcome 2017 with a Prisma-ed profile picture. Tag them!

Future: The developers are working on a video editing and VR driven version of the app.

Pokémon Go:

If there’s any app which can stake claim on the ‘app of the year’ title, this is it! A game that marries a massive popular culture phenomenon (Pokémons), with location based augmented reality tech, faced a tricky issue of user uptake. But the intuitive UI, and game play design ensured that it caught on like wildfire, despite its regular server breakdown related issues. It saw a phased launch in July 2016, with an iOS first approach, and breached the 500 million downloads mark by the end of September 2016, with Android users contributing about 100 million to the number. But since then the activity levels have slowed down with reports suggesting 79% of the paying audience (i.e. those making the in-app purchases) in U.S have stopped playing. The game needs a serious re-invention.

Future: Niantic Labs CEO, John Hanke, recently promised features like player battles, live events, and more creatures with the next app update, along with stable servers.

Yappily:

Founded by Bangalore based trio of Rohit Kumar, Kamonasish Aayush Mazumdar and Rashmi Ranjan Padhy, Yappily is an online flea market app, which helps you discover, and buy from new and upcoming brands in women's fashion, fashion accessories, jewellery, shoes and bags. The app allows you to chat directly with the seller, and the team is also verifying the sellers through their valid IDs. The platform has huge potential, but little response as of now. Keep this one bookmarked for New Year shopping!

Future: right now the seller list is a little sparse. We look forward to addition of more sellers on the platform.

Photoshop Fix: 

Fix pictures on your phone – not just adding pretty filters, or layers – but legit photo edits are now possible right on your handheld device. Adobe’s popular Photoshop tool was launched for iOS users last year but from November 2016 it has also been rolled out for the Android users. Go ahead, heal, smoothen, liquify, lighten, darken, adjust color, paint, add vignettes, tweak exposure/contrast/saturation, and defocus the picture, before you update your “facebook DP”.

Future: the app already allows you to access your edited photos on other devices through Adobe CreativeSync. Next logical step is to add more features to the app, without compromising phone’s performance.

Doorman:

This one’s part of wishlist for 2017! Available in select US cities for a while now, Doorman is app through which you can re-direct your home delivered packages to a select address and receive them at a convenient time, even if that hour is in the middle of the night. All seven days of the week. What’s better, that in case you are travelling during the expected delivery schedule, the service will hold the package for you for upto 30 days. Founded by former Pixar technical director, Zander Adell, the app has already raised close to $2million in seed funding.

Future: hoping the next city added to the roster is Delhi, Mumbai or Bengaluru!