Goooood morning! It’s Thursday, and here’s your roundup of all things tech. Today, I’m covering everything we know about TikTok’s Instagram clone. But first…
The headlines:
🎧 Nothing launched some new earphones with new tech and bright colors.
💰 Ramp has raised $150 million at a $7.65B valuation.
🛍️ A third-party iOS app store called PAL has launched in Europe.
P.S. Join us on May 2nd as makers from around the world will be hosting IRL Product Hunt meetups. RSVP to one in your city and if you don't see one, apply to host one!
Instagram and TikTok have been direct competitors ever since TikTok exploded onto the scene back in 2016. Feeling jilted, Instagram responded to TikTok’s popularity by introducing Reels, and now TikTok is taking inspiration from Instagram.
Announced yesterday, Notes is TikTok’s answer to Instagram. It’s being marketed as a lifestyle platform that lets users share their lives in both text and photo-based formats. It’s currently rolling out in Australia and Canada before making its way to the global market but based on the info shared, you can deduce what’s going on.
First of all, Notes works alongside your existing TikTok account, so there is no need to create a separate account. Second of all, it’s quite similar to Instagram (which makes for a nice break from Meta copying everyone), but it does have some notable differences.
The main feed, like a lot of apps (including TikTok), is separated into two categories: “following” and “for you,” the latter of which is an algorithmic attempt to surface content that you might like. It’s organized kind of like Pinterest with an infinite-scrolling, two-column grid, versus Instagram’s single-column layout. According to the launch assets, you can add both a headline and caption (I guess that’s where notes come in) to your posts — something Instagram doesn’t support.
Notes has been in the works for a while. I even reported on source code leaks around a month ago, and TikTok officially announced it earlier this month via a notification to users, although it was pretty detail sparse.
As mentioned, it’s rolling out first in Australia and Canada before a suspected global launch, and you’ll be happy to know it’s launching on both iOS and Android.
What do you think? Can TikTok take the photo-sharing crown from Instagram? And what does this mean for all the newcomer photo apps we recently covered who are trying to make up for what TikTok and Instagram left behind?
How do you build a web app in pure Python? That’s what Reflex does. Here are the core tools the team shouted out as key to getting it done:
- Radix UI, which handles Reflex’s core components and theming system
- React, the framework Reflex’s components, is built on top of.
- FastAPI, which Reflex uses to power its backends.
The makers note: “[Reflex] does generate React under the hood, but as a developer, you never have to touch React or Javascript. We don't do server-side rendering; all the UI is compiled up front, and your state lives on the server in Python.”
- Delta is a GameBoy emulator that’s not available on iOS.
- Math Solver GPT solves your math problems just by looking at an image.
- FitMachine provides fun and fast AI-powered home workouts.
