Dating apps, AI social networks, drama-clad “tea” apps — you name it, I’ve downloaded it.
In 2025, I tested out dozens of apps on my phone while reporting on social media for Business Insider.
Like many other internet dwellers, a majority of my time was spent on apps like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
While some of the biggest splashes on the app charts were AI apps like OpenAI’s Sora or Meta’s stand-alone AI app — and I tested out both — these felt more like blips in the fast-churning digital trend cycle.
Instead, I found myself frequently opening a small handful of apps that feel like an escape from the social media feeds of endless content and AI slop.
Here are the apps I’m using, revisiting, and keeping an eye on as 2026 begins.
The new staples
My go-to social media platform may not be on your radar, but it should be.
Retro, a photo-sharing app that’s focused on smaller-scale sharing for friends and family, remains one of my most-used apps since I first downloaded it in 2023. Founded by former Instagram employees, the app is where I now post my photo dumps to a small circle of about 15 friends. It recently launched a feature that lets you rewind through your old photos every week, making a supercut of memories.
Two other alternative social media apps I’ve been returning to are PI.FYI and Airbuds. PI.FYI, a social network from the popular culture newsletter Perfectly Imperfect, has become a tool for me to find new music, movies, and recommendations for just about anything. Meanwhile, Airbuds, a social app that shows you what music your friends are listening to, is where I turn when I’m on the hunt for new things to listen to.
If I’m making plans with friends, I’m opening Corner. The social map app has been around for a few years now, but relaunched this year with new AI-powered search tools designed with Gen Z in mind to help find nearby restaurants, bars, or shops.
The return of an old friend
One legacy social media platform that returned to my thumb-clicking rotation is Pinterest. The mood-boarding platform has undergone many changes since its new CEO, Bill Ready, took over in 2022. Search and shopping features now dominate the app, which, for me, is exactly what I come there for. I’m opening Pinterest when I am brainstorming what to wear or how to decorate a room in my apartment. Often, I’m saving things that I may want to buy later on.
Pinterest isn’t entirely an escape from AI, however. A lot of its tools use AI, and the platform has rolled out features that attempt to give users more control over how much AI-generated content they see on the app.
The app(s) that made me laugh
Danger Testing, a project by Carlos Mayers and Marc Mueller, has minted a handful of apps in the last year and describes itself as “dropping apps like songs.”
One app was essentially a virtual Labubu, while another let you digitally vandalize a Friend AI poster. A recent release, called “My Brainrot,” turns any video on your phone into a TikTok-style meme with an automated caption.
In the era of vibe coding, the apps coming from Danger Testing remind me of the silliness of early mobile apps, like the good old iBeer — just made more swiftly and with a pinch of irony for the chronically online.
The apps I’ll be testing out more in 2026
There are a lot of apps I’ll be trying out this year, and I’m sure a bunch of those will be even more dating apps touting AI as the solution for finding love. Otherwise, I’m still on the hunt for the next social network that’ll stick, tools that help people get offline and into the real world, or creative ways to use AI.
Here are a few on my radar:
Rodeo, founded by two former Hinge executives, aims to make hanging out with friends a little easier and will launch more widely later this year. It turns social media posts and screenshots into actionable activities — something I need help managing, as my phone is a wormhole for plan-making.Silk describes itself as a “blogging platform for creative research, moodboarding, and subculture,” per its website. It still has a waitlist, but any platform that signals a revival of the Tumblr days catches my eye.Wabi, an app to build mini apps, is one of many vibe coding tools trying to make coding more accessible. Founded by Eugenia Kuyda, who’s also behind the AI companion platform Replika, Wabi is still in beta on TestFlight. As someone who’s obsessed with downloading apps, perhaps this will be the tool that actually has me making my own app. We’ll see.
