NEW Social App: Lapse

Another day, another app. Lapse turns your iPhone into a disposable camera and is quickly climbing the App Store charts. It hit my social circle over the weekend, so here’s a peek at Lapse from someone who’s downloaded it and played around with it.

So, what is it?

Lapse takes a stand on authenticity, like BeReal. You snap a photo (but whenever you want), but you can’t see the photo until one to three hours later, like an old school developing photo. The app wants you to glamourize moments and be able to look back them later, like before social media and smartphones gave us this instant gratification.

Once the photo is “developed,” you can choose whether or not to share it with your friends. Choose multiple photos and it will look like the ever-popular photo dump on your friends’ feed. You can also add the photos to an album, or the app will organize your photos by month and date on your profile, which, as someone who loves looking back on memories, I love.

Getting an invite

Look at it like genius marketing or look at like it’s a pyramid scheme; either way, getting on the app isn’t so easy. Remember Clubhouse? It has a similar invite-only structure, meaning someone on the app must send you an invite to join.

While it is savvy marketing, I find this invite-only structure a little annoying and I dread pestering my friends. When you’re onboarding, it makes you add eight friends who are already on the app and invite five friends who aren’t yet on the app before you can even use it. It shows your friends by pulling from your contacts (which I never loooove). I downloaded it because I was one of a friend’s five. The automated text looks like they sent it personally with “get this app” and the link. Sneaky…

Adding “friends”

With the app being so new, I didn’t have a lot of friends on the app yet. And without knowing a lot about it, I wasn’t sure who I should add right away. (I prefer friends-only apps, like BeReal, to have close friends only.) But the app requires you to add eight before proceeding, which means you may be left adding acquaintances. I’ll admit, I closed out of the app at this step and almost gave up on proceeding since I wasn’t thrilled with my options.

After you add the eight “friends," you’re forced to invite five friends via the sneaky text. Mind you, this is all before you’ve had a chance to see what the app is and play around with it, which, again, I don’t love.

It’s so cool and authentic

The way the photos are edited really makes them look like they came out of your Kodak camera. It’s nostalgic, cool and totally transports you back to the moment.

I always enjoying seeing what my friends are up to in a less polished matter. People are taking to posts like VSCO or Instagram stories, with snaps of their food, the grocery store isle, sunset views, or group selfies.

It’s authentic. It’s in the moment. It’s just cool.

Not for business

Here at Drifter Communications, we specialize in marketing for your business. Given the friends-not-followers structure, we love the app for personal use only, not businesses (just like BeReal).

So, will it stick around?

I’m not so sure. Its invite-only gimmick has Lapse soaring up the App Store charts, but you have to invite and download before you can really see what the app’s all about. You annoy your friends to get on the app, go through the rigorous onboarding, and then it doesn’t really doesn’t offer anything super special or new. Many people are keeping it only for the photo editing component, and not for the friends at all. In fact, to quote my fifteen year old cousin, “I don’t care to see my friend’s photos. I just like how it edits the pictures.” And I have to admit, the editing is cool and definitely transports you back to a moment.

Also, it’s just another app. BeReal? Lemon8? Threads? People are exhausted and don’t want yet another app to keep up with.

So, it may not be here to stay, but I’ll keep it for a while just to save the mem’s!