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What happened this week on Product Hunt? Here’s a look at the week’s big/small/weird/creative/futuristic product launches, along with a few other things you may have missed. 👇

Big Tech 💻

Yesterday, Apple released a research app that lets Apple Watch and iPhone users participate in three health data studies. The app will track users’ heart health, collect data on headphone usage and track women’s menstrual cycles as they relate to certain health conditions. It’s worth noting that data from only people who own Apple products isn’t representative of society as a whole, but the research app is a step in the right direction.

“Hey, at least Apple is requesting our participation.” - Lydia

Apple’s other announcements this week came with the release of the new MacBook Pro and Apple Music Replay, which is the company’s competitor to Spotify Wrapped. You can relive the music that defined your year here.

Speaking of Spotify, the music streaming service is now a part of Magic Leap. You can now virtually pin your music on the wall with AR.

Predictions 🔮

We’ll all be controlling our computers with hand gestures soon. The Gestoos app lets you connect hand gestures with a command or shortcut installed on your computer, meaning you can interact with your device hands-free.

“I always wanted to be a Jedi” - Keisha

In other news, all of our smartphones will probably become foldable soon (more on that here). The iconic Razr flip phone returned in foldable glory this week.

“I can see myself flipping this open in middle of an all-hands meeting feigning nonchalance” - Abhinav

Productivity ✍️

Basecamp launched a free version of Basecamp, designed with freelancers, students, families, and personal projects in mind.

“I've always struggled finding the balance for personal project management between to-do list tools (urgh) and full-blown team project management tools which tend to be overkill. Going to give this a try.” - Marcus

GitHub has gone mobile. It’s the first version of GitHub for iOS and Android and it’s heavily focused on collaboration with peers on issues and pull requests.

Adalo launched this week and made waves in the no-code world. Given that less than 1% of the world knows how to code, Adalo lets you create mobile and web apps without technical know-how.

“Since founding Adalo, our mission has been to create something simple enough for anyone to use, but powerful enough that you could create some pretty complex functionality, and we think we’ve come pretty close” - Adalo CEO Jeremy Blalock

The Weird and Wacky 😜

MSCHF, the company behind Bull & Moon, M-Journal and Netflix Hangouts, revealed their latest drop on Tuesday. It was a "restaurant" that let you funnel corporate meal perks to political candidates and it already got shut down.

MSCHF is historically secretive about how they build products, but they talked to Product Hunt about their "dopamine and waiting" strategy to growth and why they consider themselves the 'Banksy of the internet. Read the article here.

Some other stuff from this week...

An article on brand strategy in the “death tech” industry. A discussion on selling $1 billion worth of e-commerce products. A podcast on the early days at Facebook and advice on pitching VCs. And a survey — would you join a PH meetup in your city?

Please share your honest feedback about this newsletter here. 🙏

Could Facebook take users away from popular payments platforms like Venmo and the Cash App? We’ll see.

Yesterday, Facebook took the hood off Facebook Pay, a new feature that lets you pay other people on Facebook via Messenger. While Facebook already had “Payments” through Messenger, Facebook Pay works with credit cards and will maintain your transaction history. The news comes only a few months after Facebook’s big Libra announcement, which is currently facing regulatory roadblocks. It’s worth noting that PayPal (the owner of Venmo) just backed out of the group backing Libra.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Facebook Pay will apparently be separate from Libra. 
• The new payments feature is rolling out on Messenger in the U.S. this week. 
• Facebook users can use it to pay for game purchases, event tickets, and person-to-person payments (including on Facebook Marketplace). 
• Facebook plans to expand the service to WhatsApp and Instagram. 

On Product Hunt, reactions to Facebook Pay were mixed.

“If data is a person's most valuable commodity and FB have consistently proven they can't be trusted with it, why would I ever consider using their payments system for my money?” - Connor 

“Don't be surprised your family members sending you Christmas money through Facebook Pay.” - Edison 

“Makes sense, it can easily compete with Venmo/Cash app.” - Thiago 

Do you think you’ll use Facebook Pay?

Chroma Stories is an Instagram competitor built by insiders, meaning lead developers behind Instagram Stories and Boomerang. The group of former Instagram and Facebook employees — Alex Li, Joshua Harris and John Barnett — left their jobs to start a new venture building features for the growing Stories revolution.

Chroma Stories operates as a stories-adjacent tool — it offers a variety of templates, motion presets, filters and text tools to level up your stories (whether that’s on Instagram or elsewhere). On Instagram proper, you have five fonts you can work with in your Stories. On Snapchat there’s nine. On Chroma, there’s 20 fonts and over 150 templates (for free), and even more when you opt for the app’s $30 annual subscription. 📱

Chroma is joining an interesting space. It’s part of a group of startups that aren’t trying to build the “next big social media company” but trying to build the next big tool for people already using Facebook, Instagram, Snap, WhatsApp, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube or whatever. The Chroma folks want to be competitive by making social media users feel unique in the sea of Stories, posts and likes. This type of tool is in the same vein as VSCO, the photo editing app currently has 40 million monthly users (with 75% of them under 25).

Some other apps we’ve seen in this space include Unfold (recently acquired by Squarespace), Buffer Stories Creator, Kapwing Story Templates, Featured.

Disney’s standalone streaming service Disney+ is HERE. Starting today, folks in the U.S., Canada and the Netherlands can tap into Disney’s vault of animated classics, TV shows, and new originals, as well as content from Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and National Geographic. 🎉

The streaming service plans to expand to the UK, Germany, Italy, France and Spain on March 31st, 2020, and different content will be available in different countries (like Netflix).

A slew of services have entered the streaming arena lately, including HBO Max, NBC’s Peacock and Apple TV Plus. While some may be hesitant to add yet another streaming service to their life, Disney holds a certain legacy power over viewers. For families with children, it’s a gold mine. For everyone else, Disney movies are the best form of nostalgia.

FYI: Disney+ will run you $6.99 per month. 👀

Some initial thoughts from the PH community:

“I think what's interesting is that their relatively limited catalog (compared to Netflix) is an advantage for them, as I suspect their viewers repeat view a lot.” - Steven

“I like the quality over quantity approach! I also wonder how fast movies will show up on Disney+ after being shown in the theaters.” - Elena

“While I'm not super excited about having yet another separate streaming service, I do think that this one has a good price and offering. I just hope they don't keep anything in the Disney vault and actually make their full catalog eventually available.” - Jake

Will you pay for Disney+?

P.S. If you’re not into paying for streaming services at all, try Pluto.TV for a free way to flip through channels. 📺

Facebook has two new experimental apps — AUX and Bump. The apps quietly launched out of Facebook’s new ‘NPE Team’ division, a group building consumer-facing apps to test out new ideas. So what are they? 👀

Bump is an anonymous chat app geared at helping people make new friends through icebreakers online. The idea is to make connections through dialogue versus appearances — conversations in the app are plain text with no images, videos or links. Users can only have one chat going at a time and there’s a time limit unless both people in the conversations actively engage. Facebook really wants us to be in their app.

“Giving me YikYak / After School vibes.” - Ryan

AUX is a Turntable.fm-esque app (RIP).

If you don’t remember Turntable.fm, it was basically a social network that allowed people to DJ in virtual “rooms.” It was sort of like if Spotify had chatrooms with bobbing avatars and it shut down in 2013.

AUX is launching with a similar idea — it’s a social music streaming app where users can DJ for their friends. The idea is also similar to apps like Roadtrip and we:fm, two apps that let folks DJ commutes, workouts, etc. within their social circles. What makes AUX unique, however, is that it’s going after a niche — kids and teens. And Facebook is enticing them with a “party” everyday in the app at 9:00 p.m. At the end of the party, a musical winner is chosen by how many claps they receive from their friends.

This is seems like it could turn into a popularity contest, which goes against Facebook’s recent moves to “depressurize” their apps. On Friday, news broke that Instagram would start hiding likes in the U.S. this week to make social media sharing less of a competition. Will you still post on Instagram?

Today’s Daily Digest was crafted by Product Hunt and sponsored by our friends at Pilot.

It’s almost tax season! 👻💸

We can hear you groaning, but it doesn’t have to be that way — especially if you use Pilot.

Pilot is a bookkeeping and tax prep company built for startups and e-commerce businesses. Today, they handle the bookkeeping for hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions per month and have raised $59 million from notable investors (including Stripe).

"The Pilot team was an invaluable resource to us at every stage of the company: they helped set everything up for us in the early days, and they’ve really helped us look around corners because they’re experts at high-growth tech startups." - Nick Bushak, CTO of Gem

The way they see it is: you could try to find a fax machine to get your business taxes done by your uncle’s old college roommate or you could try something more modern.

Here's how Pilot is shaking things up:

🛎You’re paired with a dedicated account manager, a full-time Pilot employee who is a finance expert. Not only do they take care of your books and taxes, but they also help you put a best-in-class financial stack in place and give you advice about best practices. Think of them as your financial butler.

🤖Their team is assisted by powerful software that helps with the most error-prone pieces of bookkeeping so that your books are incredibly accurate. This means that the team spends less time clicking around in QuickBooks and more time providing a top-notch experience for you.

📈Whether you’re two people in a garage or a 200-employee company, Pilot works and grows with you. This might also be why they count hundreds of YC companies as customers.

Pro tip: They're running a special discount for the Product Hunt community right now. Use this link and get 20 percent off your first six months of Pilot Core.

ICYMI: We’re testing out a new format for the newsletter, taking a look at the week’s big/small/weird/creative/futuristic product launches, along with a few other things you may have missed on Product Hunt.

Predictions 🔮

Native email marketing software will become a prerequisite for any company that helps you run a business.

On Tuesday, Shopify launched an email marketing tool designed to help merchants create, manage and track campaigns natively inside Shopify.

“Our goal at Shopify is to make entrepreneurship more accessible, and that includes making marketing a lot more approachable.“ - Shopify Product Manager Jacinthe Richard

And then Square launched a drag and drop email marketing tool yesterday. The software lets you design custom email, set up automated campaigns, and see how your marketing efforts affect your bottom line (from your Square Dashboard).

“Yesterday Shopify now Square. I wonder what Mailchimp thinks about this” - Ozgur

We’re curious what Mailchimp thinks too. Don’t forget that Squarespace launched it own built-in, beautifully-designed email campaign software last year.

Life Hacks ✍️

Thinking of starting a scooter company? Use this to do it without raising capital.

The “IMDB of podcasts” just debuted on Product Hunt. The idea is to help you find all of the podcast appearances of your favorite people in a superrr simple way (and it was built with no code!).

This tool will create funny and easy-to-remember passwords for you based on your “memorable insights.“

Remote Work 👀

Owl Labs made a smart 360-degree meeting room camera and speaker system that supports bigger meeting rooms. 

“While sitting in the center of a table, it uses vision and voice recognition to automatically shift the camera to focus on whoever is speaking. The result is a fully immersive experience for those who can’t be physically on-site, making everyone feel like they are in the same room.” - Owl Labs co-founder and CTO Mark Schnittman

It’s the only device of its kind on the market today. 

Sex Tech 💕

We expect to see more and more products focus on sex and intimacy. This week, Coral launched with a mix of curated science, stories and practical exercises created by experts.

“We deliver a unique experience that will show you how to have a better and more fulfilling sex life using the latest evidence-based research accompanied by guided solo and partner exercises to take your pleasure up to 11.” - Coral founder and CEO Isherna Walsh

This year, we also saw Ferly and Dipsea launch in this space.

The Weird and Wacky 😜

Database of Nachos is exactly what it sounds like — a map of the U.S. with a comprehensive list of restaurants that serve nachos. You’re welcome.

Quiver is like Airbnb but for surfboards. You can rent surfboards in over twenty countries or start making $$$ by renting your board out to the surfing community.

Big Tech 💻

Adobe just launched a ton of new products, and we broke down their new TikTok tool in more detail on Monday. They also launched an AI-powered camera, their first augmented reality creation app and Photoshop for iPad.

Microsoft’s big announcement this week came in the form of their new Office app. It combines Word, Excel and PowerPoint into one.

Some other stuff from this week...

A new place for cooking #inspo from a celebrity. A modern dictionary worth reading. A discussion on the meditation apps that work. And a podcast on bootstrapping nine businesses to millions.

Did you dig this format? Please share your honest feedback here. 🙏

Allen Walton has been in the surveillance space for nearly a decade. He’s the founder of SpyGuy, an online security store he launched in 2014 after reading Tim Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Workweek. The business now makes over seven figures selling products like spy cameras, GPS trackers, covert audio recorders, bug detectors and, most recently, a hidden camera finder. 🔎

Yesterday, Allen launched Scout, the first product he’s made in-house. Scout is a hidden camera finder for anyone who’s concerned about being spied on in private spaces (like in Airbnbs, hotels and public restrooms).

“Over time, I've watched as more and more stories hit the news about hidden cameras being found in private places - and those are just the ones that were found. Since I've been in the industry so long, I know just how prevalent these things are, how people are using them, and how people are really concerned about being filmed without their consent.” - Allen

While most media advice will tell you to scan WiFi networks or buy a radio frequency detector in order to find hidden cameras, Scout looks for the lens itself. But Allen isn’t knocking the use of hidden cameras — he does sell those on his website too, after all. 🤔

“Hidden cameras (and other spy tools) can be great tools when used legally. I've had law enforcement, private investigators, business owners, concerned parents, concerned children of the elderly.... they can be used to catch abuse, theft, and even save lives. Putting them in private areas is illegal, though, and Scout helps find those cameras.” - Allen

For the most part, comments on Scout have illuminated how much people have immediately fallen for the product. In fact, it’s filling a real need. A recent survey found that 58% of Airbnb guests are worried about hidden cameras inside Airbnbs and more than 1 in 10 Airbnb guests have discovered a hidden camera in their rental.

“Can't wait to use it in my check-in ritual at all Airbnb's moving forward.” - Jesse

“In this case, the hidden camera finder is a super compelling product for those who are traveling the world, especially as cameras become smaller and more obscure.” - Nick

“Thanks for helping women fight the creep factor while traveling.” - Ellen

Settle a debate for us — is it pronounced “GIF” or “JIF”?

We love GIFs at Product Hunt (duh). For us, it’s always fun to see creative, wacky and sometimes *mischievous* GIF projects launch, making the internet a better place.

Makers delivered last week. Mischief Managed lets you goof off at work with looped GIFs, so you can play work activities like coding, Excel, etc. on your monitor to make it look like you’re working. Maker Sukhpal Saini made the project in 24 hours, complete with a clever Harry Potter-esque landing page.

“My boss has never been happier with my work.” - Daman

Startup GIFs also launched last week, bringing us a collection of lighthearted, startup-themed GIFs to use in Slack channels. These GIFs are veryyyyy relatable.

Some other fun GIF tools we love:

💯 Gifski for converting videos into high-quality GIFs

📈 Data GIF Maker by Google turns boring data into GIFs

👏 GIPHY capture lets you make GIFs by screenrecording

📕 Print a Gif turns any gif into a printable flip book

🙌 Gifrun creates GIFs from YouTube, Facebook and Instagram

📸 Easy GIF Maker lets you quickly make GIFs for photography

🔎 GIFme lets you search and send GIFs through your Mac menu bar

Adobe is riding the TikTok wave.

Starting today, Premiere Rush — Adobe’s tool for video dabblers — will support sharing videos directly to TikTok. 🤳

Some background: Adobe launched Rush, a cross-device video editing app last October to make it super easy to share online video content. The app automatically syncs all projects and edits to the cloud, as it’s geared towards making quick, high quality content. The TikTok partnership comes by way of the company’s new SDK, which is going live with five other content creation apps. In addition to Rush, you can now post videos directly to TikTok from AI app Fuse.it, animation app Plotaverse, gaming capture app Medal and the GIF editor PicsArt.

TikTok users now get all of Rush’s built-in editing features, including auto-ducking, transitions, color filters, timelapse and slo-mo. They can also share any video creations to all social channels, including TikTok, straight from the app.

“We built Rush for content creators who want to shoot, edit and share wherever they are. With Rush, all your video projects sync across all your devices and you can make a complete edit on your phone if you want to. Rush was no small feat to build! We combined technologies from Adobe Premiere, After Effects and Audition into a new, easy to use interface” - Adobe Senior User Experience Design Lead Johannes Eckert

The TikTok partnership is well-timed, as the fast-growing app is quickly becoming the next big creative platform. The app itself now has over 800 million monthly active users, even though 500 million of those users use Douyin, the Chinese-language version of TikTok. With TikTok’s growth, we’re seeing a rise in TikTok-related products built on Product Hunt. In the past two weeks alone, we’ve seen Makers build a TikTok client for web and multiple analytics tools that let you detect influencers and track their stats.

At Adobe’s MAX conference today, the company also debuted a free AI-powered Photoshop camera app, Photoshop for iPad and its first augmented reality creation app.