App Store Revival: A Breath of Fresh Air in the AI Era

While some debate the future of apps in the face of AI agents, we’ve discovered a plethora of innovative tools, experiences, and indie efforts in the App Store. The recent explosion of new launches can be attributed to the rise of AI coding, which has enabled quicker software development and allowed novices to participate in the app ecosystem.

Source: techcrunch.com

According to a report, new app launches have soared in 2026, with a 60% increase year-over-year in worldwide new app releases across both the Apple App Store and Google Play. Apple’s iOS store alone saw an even higher 80% increase.

Source: techcrunch.com

While there’s concern about the quality of vibe-coded apps cluttering the App Store, there are plenty of interesting apps worth exploring. Those that resonate with consumers will rise to the top, and many use AI under the hood to perform their magic – even if they’re not promoted as ‘AI-powered.’

Source: techcrunch.com

App Store Hidden Gems

Here are our latest discoveries:

Albo: Your Personal Online Archive

Albo is an excellent tool for saving online content from social media, TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube videos, and websites. It automatically pulls the details from the post, categorizes, and saves the idea for you. The app works with various social media platforms, including Pinterest, X, LinkedIn, Threads, Reddit, and Facebook, plus browsers like Chrome and Safari. You can also add screenshots to Albo.

This makes it easy to save online inspiration for easy access, whether it’s travel ideas, local spots to try, movie or show recommendations, books to read, recipes to cook, or workouts to do. Your collections can also be shared with friends.

Albo hails from The Feel Good Project, a London-based app studio focusing on tech that inspires and satisfies users. The app is free to use, with advanced features available via subscription. However, we found the trial subscription push during onboarding to be heavy-handed.

Available on iOS and Google Play.

Coop: Neighborhood Marketplace

Coop offers an alternative to buying from local growers and bakers by creating a neighborhood marketplace. You can buy real handmade and homegrown items from people near you, even from the farmhouse down the road that offers fresh eggs or a neighbor willing to barter their items for yours.

On Coop, you can browse and discover nearby sellers, follow your favorites, see how far they are from you, and purchase from them via the app’s Stripe integration. The seller then receives the order and prepares it for pickup.

This app promotes local commerce, helping people turn their garden, field, or craft into an additional income stream.

Available on iOS and Google Play.

PI.FYI: A Colorful Alternative to Social Media

PI.FYI promises to bring back the ‘old internet,’ where you found recommendations through a network of friends, not algorithms. This colorful and somewhat chaotic app has emerged from a cult newsletter and still feels fresh and modern.

In PI.FYI, you can track what you’re into, share your taste, and browse by category or ‘scenes,’ like music, whimsy, retro, and literature, to find your community, read interesting articles, make lists, gather local recommendations, and play games with friends.

The app exudes a retro vibe itself, as if it were built when the internet was less polished.

Available on iOS and Google Play.

Lettre: A Digital Pen Pal Experience

Lettre is an app that lets you start new friendships with pen pals around the world, discovered through the app, or with anyone whose email address you already know. Unfortunately, letters are sent digitally through the app or email for now, but the company’s FAQ suggests it is considering a postal mail option for the future.

This letter-writing app offers a unique experience, embracing the fun of snail mail in a digital format. Available on iOS only.

Sofa Time: A Movie and TV Show Tracker

Sofa Time is an app that picks up where the recently shuttered TV Time app left off. It has an easy-to-use, uncluttered interface for tracking the movies and TV shows you’re watching, organizing your watchlist, discovering what to stream next, and getting reminders about new releases.

While Sofa Time’s commenting section doesn’t yet rival TV Time’s forums, the app’s social elements leave room for the community to grow, as it supports the ability to react with a GIF or image alongside your text, and includes built-in translation features to support a global audience.

Available on iOS and Google Play.

ThingsBook: A Writing-Focused App

ThingsBook is a new writing-focused app from South Korean internet giant Naver’s U.S. subsidiary. It offers a flexible space where you can capture what you care about, whether it’s through journaling, logging ideas, or collecting things like books, travels, meals, hobbies, and goals into structured lists you can revisit and expand.

The company explains that the app’s purpose is not to focus on ‘fleeting trends’ but to become a ‘living record of who you are and what you love.’

Available on iOS and Google Play.

Pressed Petals: A Nature Walk Companion

Pressed Petals is an indie effort from designer Cynthia Chen that turns the photos of flowers you find on your walks into a pressed specimen, like one you’d find in a ‘vintage botanical journal.’ The app automatically saves the location where you spotted the flower, and the date and time, turning your nature walks into interactive experiences.

You can try the app to press two flowers for free, then pay a one-time fee of $4.99 to unlock the full experience.

Available on iOS and Google Play.

Moods Faster: A Mood-Tracking App

Moods Faster is a single-purpose app that offers a way to log your moods for tracking in Apple Health in just two taps – one to select the mood and a second to save it.

You can choose between logging your current mood or your overall mood for the day, and can also optionally add information about the context and emotions you’re experiencing at the time of logging. In the settings, you can pick between different color schemes for your moods, though some are paywalled.

Available on iOS and Google Play.

Activate Fitness: A Family-Friendly Screen-Time-Earning App

Activate Fitness is an app that was originally pitched as a way to encourage kids to exercise, but has recently expanded to include the whole family. This makes it better, as it can turn outdoor time or exercise into a fun experience for the whole family.

Available on iOS and Google Play.