TikTok only launched in late 2017, but has come to dominate the short-form video market. It boasts over 1.5 billion users worldwide, including a huge proportion of younger users — some estimates suggest 47.4% of TikTok users are under 30 years-old — a critical demographic for advertisers.
The runaway success of TikTok has forced competitors like Instagram and YouTube to shift focus to shorter video clips, launching competitors Reels and Shorts respectively to avoid losing users. The influence of TikTok amongst American citizens has resulted in a movement, supported by Joe Biden’s White House, to ban the social media app completely in the United States.
Against this backdrop, TikTok isn’t slowing down ...and it’s now got another popular social network in its sights.
Code unearthed within the app seemingly shows that a team working at parent company ByteDance is quietly building a competitor to Instagram under the TikTok brand name.
This so-called TikTok Photos app was discovered by TheSpAndroid blog, which unearthed details of the as-yet unannounced app within the code of the latest version of the TikTok app on Android.
TikTok already boasts the ability to share pictures within videos. Multiple photos can be uploaded, with a swipe gesture to scroll through an album, which can be paired with your choice of music.
The standalone app will build on this functionality but will likely offer additional features.
According to code discovered by team at TheSpAndroid, posting a photo on TikTok will summon a prompt about the new app, stating “TikTok Photos will be launched soon..."
Early code within the latest version of TikTok suggests that photos posted on the video-sharing platform will also be shared on TikTok Photos too. Although this functionality — which mirrors cross-sharing features built into Meta-owned platforms like Facebook and Instagram — can be disabled.
An app icon for TikTok Photos on iOS and Android was also discovered hiding in the code. It recycles the same colour scheme found on the primary TikTok app.
It’s clear that development of this new platform is pretty far along if TikTok has already designed a new logo and identity for the brand. With so many established rivals, like Instagram and YouTube, racing to implement features that mimic the best aspects of TikTok, it makes sense the teams at ByteDance want to replicate what works for its closest competition.
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As we’ve seen with the recent success of BeReal, it’s still possible for new social media services to challenge long-established players like Instagram and Facebook. TikTok Photos has the advantage of being advertised to a vast userbase of hundreds of millions of people who already love TikTok.
Despite its superb detective work, TheSpAndroid didn’t find anything lurking in the code to indicate when we expect a TikTok Photos app to launch.
