The favored YouTuber Marques Brownlee has introduced he plans to close down his subscription app for cell phone wallpapers, Panels.
The content material creator, whose sometimes scathing takes on new tech products have helped him amass greater than 20 million YouTube subscribers, launched the app in September 2024.
Panels let individuals obtain a variety of digital wallpapers for his or her gadgets for a month-to-month charge – beginning at $11.99 (£9) a month.
However greater than a yr after dealing with scrutiny over its value and privateness, Brownlee has advised followers the app could be shut down altogether on 31 December.
“We made errors in making our first app and finally we weren’t capable of flip it into the imaginative and prescient that I had had,” he mentioned in a video on Sunday.
Brownlee – who goes by MKBHD on his socials – advised viewers he needed it “to grow to be a vibrant ecosystem” for wallpapers, and supporting the artists who design them.
He mentioned the app had had some successes – topping app obtain charts at launch and seeing two million wallpaper downloads – calling it “a rollercoaster trip”.
“However on the finish of the day, it wasn’t capable of maintain,” he mentioned, noting the app’s “area of interest” attraction and viewers.
Brownlee had beforehand highlighted the app’s doubtlessly restricted attraction when responding to criticism of it shortly after it launched.
“The goal marketplace for that is insanely small,” he told one user on X final September who questioned his choice to launch a digital wallpapers app.
“Most individuals do not obtain a wallpaper app.
“That is for many who have been asking. In the event you’re not into it, don’t fret about it.”
He additionally thanked the artists who had been concerned in creating wallpapers for the app.
A discover on the Panels website mentioned customers would be capable of preserve bought or downloaded wallpapers from the app “endlessly” and be refunded for any lively subscriptions after its closure on the finish of the month.
They might additionally be capable of create their very own spin-offs of the app, because the code behind it will grow to be open supply.
“It will enable anybody to construct on what we began – we’re excited to see what new tasks might develop from it,” the discover learn.
