Bobble, an app from India that enables highly personal self-expression, has gone live inside iMessage, the messaging service developed by Apple Inc. for all iPhones, iPads etc. A major feature of iOS10, released on September 14, 2016 is the iMessage App Store and Bobble is the only app from India to be featured on it by Apple’s editorial team. Users in India, Russia, Sweden, Belarus, UAE, Ukraine, Pakistan and Hong Kong and over 150 other countries will now be able to enjoy real-time personalization of content with their own faces and relevant text.
Speaking on the integration with Apple iMessage, Mohd Wassem, cofounder of Bobble, said, “We were contacted by Apple to feature as a launch partner for iOS10 less than a week ago. We grabbed this opportunity and worked overtime to meet the deadline. Visual communication on mobile has seen an exponential rise in popularity and our technology is unique in its ability to facilitate real-time personalization of content. No other product in the world offers this technology and we’re confident of adding value to the iMessage experience.”
The integration with iMessage is an illustration of the fact that Bobble’s tech can be distributed widely. Its SDK can be integrated well with diverse apps. Its leadership stance in its category is also apparent from the fact that it enjoys the youngest user base in the world. 90% of Bobble users are 25 years or younger with its engagement and growth metrics being comparable to the top 150 Android apps globally. Its keyboard enjoys cult-like following among school and college students in India, and holds the same potential globally. 85% of Bobble users are organic and 65% of the total user base employs the app more than 5 times in the first week of downloading.
Elaborating on the plans ahead, Mohd Wassem added, “Going forward, we hope to leverage more such partnerships with leading players in Messaging, Live Streaming, Gaming, Social and Keyboards. Within the next quarter, we will roll out more features for our target audience of 13-29 years. Our near-term product roadmap includes personalized GIFs and personalized emojis with the user’s face. In a tightened fundraising environment, we are poised to scale independently. Our aspiration is to build a truly global, consumer-focused internet-product from India, and challenge the existing paradigm for mobile conversations.”
Bobble’s investors include institutional investors like SAIF Partners, and tech veterans like Sachin & Binny Bansal of Flipkart, Deep Kalra of MakeMyTrip, and Amit Ranjan of SlideShare. In the last 2 years, it has raised 3 rounds of funding.
Bobble App on iMessage App Store: Download Link
Bobble App on Apple App Store: Download Link
Bobble’s journey started as a selfie-based sticker app adding a fun, personalized element to users’ photo-sharing experience. They get access to unlimited stickers to customize their faces with. A user can send Bobble’s content while chatting on WhatsApp, Facebook, WeChat, etc without having to switch between apps. In real time, Bobble’s technology adjusts the expression on every face to match the emotion of the sticker. Also, the face tone of each head is adjusted to match with sticker body and theme. Launched in March 2015 in India, the app swiftly rose to the top slot and has been consistently ranked #1 in its category.
All text on stickers is customizable by users in any language. Personalized content is recommended to users based on the tone and tenor of the input text, through a self-learning algorithm. All content on Bobble is free of cost and users can download as much content as they wish from the ‘Bobble Store’. The app has been extending its technology by incorporating new content formats to further its product philosophy of self-expression. In the same endeavour, colourful and expressive fonts were recently added as new features.
