MyPad’s 10 million registered users are definitely digging the update, as sharing is up nearly 10x in the last few days. What was once a substitute for the missing official Facebook iPad app has blossomed into a bridge between our fractured social graphs.
This is the first update for MyPad’s iPhone app in eight months, and also brings Airplay mirroring so you can watch Ken Burns slideshows of photos from all your social networks on your TV. The iPad version meanwhile scores new Retina graphics.
All that data MyPad collects about what a user interacts with and what their friends share is powering its emerging business model as a mobile app discovery platform. If users slide past navigation bar’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram buttons, they’re shown recommendations of apps to download.These suggestions seem accurate as MyPad developer Loytr’s founder Cole Ratias tells me 0.5% of people that see them download an app (that’s pretty high), and developers pay MyPad on a for each click to the App Store. Loytr is even talking to ad networks and servers like MoPub about using its data to power recommended app ad units on other properties.
Those partnerships could lure investors to the Series A Loytr is now raising. MyPad is proving itself a great example of how a nimble startup can survive by differentiating when the big dogs steam roll your value-add. Now it will be competing with Flipboard, though with deeper functionality and a familiar layout rather than a stylized one.
Stitching several full-featured social networks together in one app is a huge design challenge. Authorizing Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram in a row can feel like an endless cascade of permissions. And if you think Facebook’s mobile apps feel bloated, MyPad has 14 different feature tabs, though at least they’re all available with a tap from its navigation bar.
But if you’re experiencing app overload as Facebook spawns standalones like Messenger and Camera, or don’t want to turn to Path so you can cross-post to Facebook and Twitter simultaneously, MyPad could be the answer. So keep friending and following, your whole social life now fits in one app.
Click here to download MyPad+ for iPhone ($0.99), MyPad for iPad (free), or MyPad+ for iPad ($0.99).
