Christian Selig might not be engaged on Apollo for Reddit anymore, however it appears he’s doing simply high quality. Since shutting down Apollo due to the potential prices of Reddit’s usage-based API pricing, Selig has poured his power into Pixel Friends, a widget-focused app that takes benefit of many iOS options in some shocking and pleasant methods. In keeping with Selig, the app is proving to be profitable, too.
For instance of what Pixel Friends is now able to, look no additional than Language Pal, a language-learning widget that just launched for free. With Language Pal, you’ll be able to apply vocabulary throughout 10 totally different languages (together with, hilariously, “Canadian”) by means of a guessing sport widget proper in your homescreen.
Language Pal is only one of many widgets you’ll be able to decide from. There are extra conventional widgets like calendars, clocks, and battery percentages. You’ll be able to take care of the lovable pixel animals as a part of a Tamagotchi-like digital pet sport. I’ve been impressed by the opposite video games — you’ll be able to play a full model of 2048 as a widget, although it’s a little finicky. And there are extra widgets within the works, too; Selig tells The Verge he hopes to launch a trivia widget (“Trivia Pal”) by October twenty seventh.
Pixel Friends is free, and also you don’t should pay a dime to have the ability to use the overwhelming majority of what the app affords. Nonetheless, there are just a few methods Selig makes cash from it, together with an an choice to pay actual cash for digital meals on your pixel mates and a premium subscription ($1.99 per 30 days or $14.99 per 12 months) that provides you entry to issues like extra pixel animals.
Pixel Friends has been a giant success for Selig, and he says it was even earlier than Apollo shut down. “Pixel Friends does weirdly properly,” Selig tells The Verge. “Even when Apollo was in its heyday, Pixel Friends was about 40 p.c of my total income, and it’s solely gone up from there now that I’ve had extra time to give attention to it.” He says he may see Pixel Friends approaching $1 million in annual recurring income by the top of the 12 months, “which might positively exceed Apollo.”