A social app called Locket jumped to the top of the App Store charts, thanks to a widget that puts friends’ Live Photos on the iOS home screen. The widget system is usually used to display information such as 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 conceived by Matt Moss, a former Apple Worldwide Developers Conference student scholarship recipient who recently graduated from UC Santa Barbara and has been building an app called Eagle User research and testing platform from Hawkeye Labs.
Matt Moss said that developing Locket is a personal side business, not his main focus. He said: Last summer I gave the app to my girlfriend for her birthday. She’s going back to school in the fall, so we’re about to start a long-distance relationship. Received on my home screen. The process of her little pictures…seems really engaging. Just a great way to keep in touch.
The entire app development process took only 1-2 weeks and ended up using it fairly extensively with his girlfriend for the past 6 months, sending each other an average of 5 photos a day. Since Locket also stores photos sent and received 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 had signed up. On Sunday, Locket became the No. 1 app overall in the U.S. App Store, according to Apptopia’s App Store data, and the No. 1 social networking app the day before. Apptopia reports that there have been only about 1 million installs globally so far, with about 31 percent of those coming from the U.S. — but its data was only as of yesterday.
Moss attributes Locket’s rapid adoption to virality on TikTok, where he posts Locket videos from his company account, where he can show the app in action. His video received about 100,000 views in just a few days. Subsequently, other TikTok users started producing their own content, which included the app and the custom sounds used in the original Locket video.
This helped 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 occurred here, and he’s not doing paid advertising on TikTok or elsewhere.