Vine creator’s new Byte app debuts at No.1 on Apple’s App Store

Byte, a new video-sharing app released Friday, reboots the deprecated Vine video-sharing service. Byte app creator Dom Hofmann co-founded Vine in the summer of 2012 and sold to Twitter later that year. Twitter failed to find a way to properly monetize the service and discontinued it in 2016. Now, Hofmann’s Byte app has rocketed to the top of Apple’s U.S. App Store.

Byte app
Byte video-sharing app

Vlad Savov for Bloomberg:

Despite its brief existence, Vine became a cultural touchpoint in the U.S., with many users embracing its six-second time limit as a creative challenge… Byte “ended Friday as the No. 1 free iPhone app on the U.S. App Store and is still in the top spot,” said Randy Nelson of research firm Sensor Tower.

Beside the U.S., Byte is also the top free iOS app in Canada and ranks in the top 10 in Australia, New Zealand, Norway and the U.K. On Android’s Play Store, Byte is sixth among free apps in the U.S.

MacDailyNews Take: Fragmandroid sufferers. Always late to the party.

The strong early response to Byte’s arrival — coming with little to no advance fanfare — suggests the community that Vine built up remains loyal to the particular six-second format.

MacDailyNews Take: Tick-tock, TikTok.

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