# Searching "Umingle" leads to something that isn't Umingle: an iPhone selfie camera borrowing the name of a web chat site · mobile app

> Source: https://stringers.io/en/apps/ios_6791878334.html (Stringers / 什么值得做, generated 2026-11-08)
> Stringers answers one question every day: what small product can one or two people build in a few months and actually make money from. Numbers come from 15 databases we collect daily, each with source and date.
> For agents: these verdicts and the underlying databases (verified revenue, App Store / Google Play charts, ad libraries, GitHub, Product Hunt…) are queryable live over MCP — tools today / hot / products / directions / direction / data. Setup: https://github.com/komako-workshop/stringers (the user logs in at stringers.io → "配置 agent" to get a personal URL). Site index: https://stringers.io/llms.txt

> The Umingle website is popular but web-only. iPhone users searching its name in the App Store get this app as the first result. Downloads come mostly from users in the Philippines and Indonesia, who get a pile of ads once inside.

[Mobile App](https://stringers.io/en/apps/index.md) · iOS · written 11-6

Umingle - Video Chat Studio · Bhargav Kuvadiya

# Searching "Umingle" leads to something that isn't Umingle: an iPhone selfie camera borrowing the name of a web chat site

**What it is** A local recording app that fills every tile of a group video call interface with your own camera feed. Its name borrows from the random stranger video chat site Umingle.

**Why it took off** Umingle is popular but web-only. iPhone users searching its name in the App Store get this app first. Downloads come mostly from users in the Philippines and Indonesia, who open it and first see a wall of ads.

**C** **How you could follow** Don't copy it by borrowing a name. What's worth learning is finding brands with rising search volume but only a web version, and building the piece the real brand didn't.

Grade C: growth relies entirely on occupying someone else's brand name. That spot is already taken by it and Thundr, and rebranding and doing it again would only be short-term arbitrage. The real brand has already taken down knockoffs on Google Play and could be removed on a trademark complaint at any time, and the revenue signals are weak. Hardly anyone knows about it yet

Data (updated daily) · Launched 2026-08-02 · US store rating 645 · 11-08 best Top Free overall rank #177 (Indonesia) · 11-08 charted in 81 stores

iOS · Overall Top Free rank · by store

Indonesia Philippines

Data 2026-10-28 → 2026-11-08 (12 days, 12 observations). Lower rank is higher; gaps mean it wasn't charted that day

iOS · Best category rank · US store

Data 2026-10-28 → 2026-11-08 (12 days, 12 observations). Best rank across each day's category charts

iOS · Number of stores charted (top 200 on any chart)

Data 2026-10-28 → 2026-11-08 (12 days, 12 observations)

Three years after Omegle shut down, its successor site Umingle gets over ten million visits a month, yet has no iPhone app. A solo developer whose only App Store app is this one named a local camera that makes "every video tile you" "Umingle - Video Chat Studio". In three months it collected 8,400+ ratings and reached #3 on the free utility charts in Indonesia and the Philippines. It has built no new product. It earns from someone else's brand search. Below: how it gets traffic, where the money comes from, who else is doing the same, and why this path isn't really worth following.

### "When I open it, something else comes out"

In 2026 September 6, a Filipino user gave it 1 stars with a review in Tagalog: "bat po pag open ko iba po lumabas start clone something po lumalabas" (when I open it, something different comes out, "start clone" something comes out). A month later, US reviews were blunter: "Not really Umingle / Fake app" (10-06), "App wasn't as advertised it is FAKE" (10-12).

These users wanted umingle.com: a site that randomly pairs you with strangers for video chat. They searched "Umingle" in the App Store, and this app ranked first. 11-06 searched in the US, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and it was the top result in all three (App Store search, 11-06). Opening the download shows an interface styled as a group video call, with your own camera feed in every tile.

### What it actually is

The first line of the store page reads "It looks like a group video call. Every tile is you." The features turn one camera into several "clones": mirrored, frozen, delayed by a few seconds, zoomed, glitch effects, arranged in a grid, with a row of call-app-style buttons underneath, recording saved to the phone. It's categorized as Reference (reference tools), 4+.

The description has a dedicated "GOOD TO KNOW" section: this app looks like a video call but never is one. There's no video chat, no calls, no messages, no connection to anyone. The purpose is clear: pass Apple review, and leave a line that says "we stated it clearly" for when someone reports it later.

The developer is Bhargav Kuvadiya. The account has only this one App, and its privacy page is hosted on a blogspot blog. 2026-08-02 it was listed, and the next day it shipped version 3.0 with the release note just 「bug fix.」. It has not updated since. The copyright line reads 「CamCircle @2026」, and in the Philippines store 8-25 there is a 5-star review titled 「Camcircle」. The version number starting at 3.0 plus that old name suggests it was first submitted under the CamCircle name and then renamed to Umingle (inference; no rename record is visible).

Pricing: $2.99 per week, $5.99 per month, or $23.99 lifetime. Subscribing removes ads (US store page).

### Why Umingle, and why now

The demand was already there, passed down the line:

- Omegle shut down in 2023-11-08 (BBC), and those users moved to Uhmegle;

- 2025-10-14, the same crew launched umingle.com, and Uhmegle's homepage posted "you can now use Umingle instead" to funnel people over (yappochat's research, checked against UK company filings and WIPO records);

- Semrush estimates umingle.com got over 12M visits from 2026 to September, while Uhmegle got under 2M; on Google Trends, Umingle passed Uhmegle this January and was over 10x its level by November (same source);

- On TikTok, #umingle is the big tag for streamers doing live calls and bits. Single videos run from 30k to 1.16M views, e.g. @lolaatitaa with one at 1.16M and @.rie308 with one at 480k (TikTok, September to November).

The key point: **the real brand only has a web version.** YouTube is full of "How to Download Umingle App for iPhone" tutorials, and they all teach you to add the web page to your home screen. So everyone who saw the TikTok and wanted the app on their iPhone walked into the App Store, couldn't find the real thing, and found this instead.

### Where the users and money come from

Traffic is almost entirely brand-name searches in the store. I found no sign of paid ads or creator deals (not finding something doesn't mean it didn't happen).

| What to look at | Metric | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| Global cumulative ratings | 8,427, +7 in the last 615 days, about 33–121 new ratings per day | App Store, 10-28 to 11-06 |
| Countries charted | 76–89 per day | App Store, 10-28 to 11-06 |
| Storefronts with the most ratings | Philippines 3,299, Indonesia 2,099, US 637, India 433, Egypt 206 | App Store,11-06 |
| Best rank | #3 on the Reference Top Free chart in Indonesia and the Philippines; #197 on the overall Top Free chart in Indonesia | App Store,11-06 |
| Top Grossing | Hardly any ranking, just #32 on the Reference Top Grossing chart in Malta | App Store,11-06 |

Growth is flat, averaging 80–90 ratings a day. It doesn't spike like a chart push, which fits a steady stream of people searching the real product's name. Why Southeast Asia: the Google Play copycat "Uhmegle - Connect Live Chat" with the same name trick has 445k installs, and its best rank was on Indonesia's Social Top Free chart (Google Play, 11-06). Indonesia and the Philippines are where anonymous video chat gets searched the most, and there are plenty of iPhone users. The Reference category is also less crowded, so a few dozen ratings a day can get you into the top spots, and category charts bring a second wave of exposure.

Money is mostly ads. Nearly all of the 1-star reviews from the Indonesian store complain about ads: "kebanyakan iklan" (too many ads), "Iklan nya banyak bgt" (so many ads), and one says "padahal udah upgrade" (even though I already upgraded): ads still show after paying. The Philippines reviews say "Too much Ads" and "dami ads". Some people do buy the subscription, but the Top Grossing chart shows almost no signal, so revenue scale is unclear and probably small.

The 4.46 average rating (Indonesia) doesn't match the wall of bad reviews. A few 5-star reviews from India contain only a person's name, like "Rishab / Sen" or "Arun / Kumar", which suggests users thought they were filling in a chat profile and typed their name into the rating prompt (inference).

### Who else does the same thing

This isn't a one-off. It's a playbook: find a hot anonymous chat site that only exists on the web, and list an app under its name with a harmless "looks like a video call" wrapper.

| Name | Where | Launched | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thundr - Video Chat Journal(Matilda Hughes) | iOS,Reference | 2026-03-18 | Rides the web site Thundr, with a video-diary wrapper; 237 US ratings, and searching "umingle" in the US, Indonesia, and the Philippines also ranks it near the top |
| Omezy - Video Chat Scenes(Anika Desai) | iOS,Reference | 2026-09-10 | Rides omezy.io, with a "one person playing multiple characters in a call skit" wrapper; the pitch is almost the same as Umingle's and it appeared after Umingle |
| Uhmegle - Connect Live Chat(SK Dev Labs) | Android | 2026-02-25 | 445k installs, +7k in 36 days, built into a social app |
| Uhmingle (copycat) | Android | end of 2025 | 2026-01 was pulled from Google Play over trademark (WIPO D2026-0177) |
| OmeTV, Monkey, Azar, etc. | Both platforms | Years | Real stranger video social, has to pass content moderation, large scale |

The last two lines show two things: the real brand will fight back, and it has already taken one down. The path of actually building stranger video social has long been the territory of big companies.

### It worked because three things came together

- **A big, growing brand with no native app.** Omegle's traffic carried over to Umingle over three years, and TikTok keeps amplifying it.

- **It got the name in the App Store first.** The title hits both "umingle" and "video chat", and it ranks first for the brand name in all three main markets.

- **The wrapper was just enough to pass review and just enough to keep people from deleting right away.** The interface looks like a call, while the description says it isn't one. People who got tricked in at least see a few ads first.

### If it were you

**C: there's a traffic idea to learn here, but copying it isn't worth it.** Its whole value is "take the brand name before the real owner does," and that spot is already taken by it and Thundr. Doing it again with another brand is short-term arbitrage that can be pulled at any time after a trademark complaint, and the revenue looks small.

**Who it's for:** indie developers who already work on store keywords and mass-publish small utilities, who have review experience and a few spare developer accounts, and who treat this as a few-month experiment, not a business.

**Who it's not for:** anyone who wants to build a product that keeps users and earns reputation over time (the first reaction of users who walk in is "I got tricked," and the reviews prove it); anyone who cares about developer account safety (Apple can penalize trademark abuse by suspending the whole account); anyone who wants to build real stranger video social (that's the turf of OmeTV and Azar, and it needs heavy moderation costs).

**How to do it (if you must try):** the part really worth learning is the step of "finding the gap": start with Google Trends and site traffic estimates, find brands whose search volume is rising and that only exist on the web, then search their names in the App Store and Google Play and check whether the top results include the real thing. A more defensible move than riding someone else's trademark is to build the piece these web services haven't built: the reason the real product has no app is often review and compliance costs, which makes it both an opportunity and a warning.

**How it gets users:** its acquisition is store search, at zero cost. Small countries and small categories (the Reference charts in Indonesia and the Philippines) can get a few dozen ratings a day and make the top spots, as long as you match a real search term.

**When the window closes:** before the real product ships an iOS app or files a trademark complaint. umingle.com has already taken down a copycat on Google Play, so it's a matter of time before iOS follows (inference).

**Signs that would mean you read it wrong:**

- As of early 2027, the app was still listed and still gaining dozens to hundreds of ratings a day, and the same developer had already put out a second and third app under other names. That suggests Apple is lenient toward this kind of name-riding, and the arbitrage window is longer than expected, so it's worth looking at again;

- The real product launched its own iPhone app, and this app's rating growth barely slowed. That suggests its traffic doesn't all come from the name: people do want a clone camera on its own;

- On the other hand, it was pulled within a few weeks, and Thundr and Omezy vanished with it: that means this path is closed.

---

Data and sources: App Store listing pages, ratings and charts by country (10-28 to 11-06); App Store reviews from the US, Philippines, Indonesia, and India (8-10 to 11-03); App Store search results for "umingle" (US, Indonesia, Philippines, 11-06); Google Play install counts (11-06); yappochat.com's research on Umingle (including Semrush, Google Trends, UK company filings, WIPO records); BBC reporting on Omegle shutting down; public TikTok #umingle video view counts (September to November); YouTube iPhone tutorials for Umingle. Revenue has no public data, so scale is an inference.

[iOS store page ↗](https://apps.apple.com/app/id6791878334)

**Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report**

Competitors

| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from this one |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| umingle.com (official site) | Web | 2025-10-14 | Semrush estimates 2026-09 >12M visits/mo | The real Chatroulette-style video chat has no native iOS app; this one just borrows the name and does no social at all |
| Uhmegle | Web | 2024 | 2M visits/mo, already sending traffic to Umingle | Predecessor brand, chat has stopped |
| Uhmegle - Connect Live Chat(SK Dev Labs) | Android | 2026-02-25 | 445k installs, 7-day +36k, Indonesia SOCIAL free chart #52 | Same name-riding play, but as a social app, Indonesia has the most of these too |
| Uhmingle knockoff app | Android | end of 2025 | Pulled from Google Play over a trademark issue 2026-01 | Copycats riding the name, already taken down by the original's rights holder |
| OmeTV / Monkey / Emerald Chat / Azar | Other | Years | Big | Real stranger video chat; this app connects no one |
| Clone Camera Pro | iOS | 2012 | Small | A proper dual-camera app, no brand-piggybacking, no search traffic |

Where users come from

- **Verified:** **App Store brand-name search hijack (riding on the Umingle name)** : the title is literally "Umingle - Video Chat Studio"; umingle.com has no native iOS app (YouTube only has web-version tutorials); reviews include "Not really Umingle / Fake app" (US store 10-06) and "Opened something else entirely" (Philippines store 9-06)

- **Verified** **The original brand's TikTok buzz is driving search demand (not this app's paid ads)** : #umingle creator and stunt videos hit 30K to 1.16M views per clip on TikTok (TikHub, 2026-09 to November); on Google Trends, Umingle gets more than 10x the searches of Uhmegle (yappochat)

- **Verified** **small-country low-barrier category chart exposure** : Reference ranks #3 on the Top Free chart in Indonesia and the Philippines, charted in about 80 countries (appstore library)

- Inferred **paid acquisition or Apple Search Ads** : no evidence found

- Inference : **Review gating** likely. Several India-store reviews with 5 stars contain only a person's name, and many are negative, yet the average still sits at 4.46. It looks like users are treating the rating prompt as a profile form. Still just an inference.

## Why Umingle - Video Chat Studio (iOS id6791878334) Made It

> 2026-11-06. Data sources: our App Store / Google Play database (agent-im server), Apple lookup and review RSS, Jina/Exa web search, TikHub TikTok search, x-radar.

### Bottom line

It hasn't built a new product. It makes money by **hijacking the brand name** . Umingle is the web-based stranger video chat site that launched in 2025-10 as the successor to Omegle → Uhmegle (over 12M monthly visits), but **it has no official iOS app** . This developer named an app "Umingle - Video Chat Studio" and packaged it as a local camera clone that looks like a group video call with every tile being you (Reference category, 4+), so it gets past Apple review. Users searching "Umingle" on the App Store (mainly in the Philippines, Indonesia, and India) assume it's the official app, and the download is the traffic. It monetizes through heavy ads, plus a $2.99/week subscription to remove them.

### 1. Basics

- Developer Bhargav Kuvadiya (individual account, artistId 1781228168, this is the only App on it; the privacy page is hosted at bkappsios.blogspot.com), copyright reads "CamCircle @2026". Store subtitle "Live Camera Clip Maker". Listed on 2026-08-02, and the next day came version 3.0 (release note "bug fix."), with no updates since. The version number starts straight from 3.0, plus "CamCircle" in the copyright, which looks like an old shell renamed, or a different name used first to get through review, **unverified** .

- In-app purchases: Weekly $2.99 / Monthly $5.99 / Lifetime $23.99 (US store page). The description states "no ads after subscribing".

- Score: cumulative across all stores 8,427 (library, 2026-11-06), up 7 over the last 615 days, 33–121 per day, charted in 76–89 countries (daily_all_countries, 10-28 to 11-06). Averaged over 87 days, that's about 88 per day. Growth is steady, not a sudden spike like a chart run.

- By country: Philippines 3,299 ratings, Indonesia 2,099, US 637, India 433, Egypt 206. In Indonesia and the Philippines, the Reference Top Free chart reaches #3, and the overall Top Free chart in Indonesia hits #197 (library app_profile). Top Grossing has almost no signal, only Malta's Reference Top Grossing at #32.

- Average 4.46 (Indonesia storefront lookup, 2,112 ratings).

### 2. Why it took off: riding the Umingle name

**The demand was already there:**

- Omegle shut down 2023-11-08 (BBC). Afterward Uhmegle caught those users; 2025-10-14 the same people (UK Techmaks Ltd → Greyflint Ltd, same director) launched umingle.com, and the Uhmegle homepage changed to "you can now use Umingle instead," routing traffic over (yappochat.com/blog/umingle, 2026-11-03 checked against Companies House and WIPO records).

- Semrush estimates umingle.com gets over 12M visits 2026-09, while Uhmegle gets under 2M; on Google Trends, Umingle 2026-01 outpaced Uhmegle globally, and by November it was more than 10x its level (same source).

- On TikTok, #umingle is a big tag for streamers and meme clips, with single videos pulling 30K to 1.16M views (TikHub search "umingle app", 2026-09 to November, e.g. @lolaatitaa 1.16M, @.rie308 480K, @nephew.quin 109K). Brand awareness keeps getting amplified over and over.

- **The official product is web-only:** YouTube is full of "How to Use Umingle on iPhone without downloading any app" and "install the umingle web app" tutorials; uminglevideo.com also teaches people to add the web page to their home screen. That means when iPhone users search "Umingle," there is no official app in the App Store.

**This app grabbed that gap:**

- The name is simply "Umingle - Video Chat Studio," whose title hits both "umingle" and "video chat" search terms; a Jina search for "umingle app iOS" ranks it first.

- The description is deliberately written to look like group video calls when there are no people at all, and it even includes a disclaimer: "GOOD TO KNOW... There is no live video chat." This is both review-passing wording and a shield if it gets reported.

- Users are lured in by deception, as the reviews show:
    - US store: "Not really Umingle / Fake app" (10-06), "App wasn't as advertised it is FAKE" (10-12).
    - Philippines: "bat po pag open ko iba po lumabas start clone something" (when I open it, something else appears, 9-06), "Scam" (8-11).
    - Several 5-star reviews in the India store contain only names ("Rishab / Sen," "Arun / Kumar," "Manohar / Siddi"). It looks like users thought they were filling in chat profiles and typed their names into the rating prompt, which may also explain why a pile of bad reviews still leaves an average of 4.46. This is inference.
    - Indonesia: many 1-star reviews complain about too many ads ("kebanyakan iklan," "Iklan nya banyak bgt," "Iklan / Dan berbayar"), indicating that ads are the main monetization.

- Why Southeast Asia specifically: Uhmegle - Connect Live Chat on Play (SK Dev Labs, 2026-02-25), which also rides the name, has 445k installs, 7 days +36k, and its best result was #52 on the **Indonesia** SOCIAL Top Free chart (googleplay library, 2026-11-06). That suggests Indonesia and the Philippines are where brand searches for this kind of stranger video chat are strongest, and the iPhone installed base there is large enough.

**Where the money comes back from:** No paid acquisition (found no evidence of ad or influencer spending; Meta and TikTok ad libraries only track listed products, so absence there doesn't prove absence), all traffic from organic store search. Each installed user sees ads first, and a few pay $2.99/week for a subscription. Competition in the Reference category is light: in Indonesia and the Philippines, a few dozen ratings a day can push it into the top of the category, and category-chart exposure brings secondary traffic.

### 3. Competitors and similar apps

| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| umingle.com (official site) | Web | 2025-10-14 | Semrush estimates >12M visits/month (2026-09) | Real stranger video chat; no native iOS app, which is the gap |
| Uhmegle | Web | 2024 | 2M visits/mo, already sending traffic to Umingle | Predecessor |
| Uhmegle - Connect Live Chat(SK Dev Labs) | Android | 2026-02-25 | 445k installs, 7 days +36k | Same name-riding, but built as a social app |
| Uhmingle (knockoff app) | Android | 2025 base | 2026-01 removed from Google Play over trademark (WIPO case D2026-0177 records) | Shows the official owner will enforce |
| OmeTV / Monkey / Emerald Chat / Azar, etc. | iOS/Android/web | Years | Big | Legitimate stranger social apps that must pass review and moderation; this app does no social at all |
| Clone Camera Pro(Peta Vision) | iOS | 2012 | Small | Legitimate fake-camera app, nobody searches for it |
| Fake Video Call / Fake-A-Call type | iOS | Years | Small | Fake incoming calls, not riding a brand |

### 4. Copycats (same playbook: web chat brand name + harmless Reference shell)

- **Omezy - Video Chat Scenes** (Anika Desai, 2026-09-10, Reference, charted in 15 storefronts, 7 ratings): rides the web site omezy.io (claims 7M users), with a shell of "multi-character call-style short drama recording" that is nearly identical to Umingle's pitch, and it came out later, so it's likely a copy.

- **Thundr - Video Chat Journal** (Matilda Hughes, 2026-03-18, Reference, 188 ratings): rides the web site Thundr, with a video-diary shell. It came earlier and counts as a predecessor of the same playbook.

- Similar shells in the same developer network: "MerlMovie: Watch Movie Browser" shows up under its "customers also bought," and there's a similarly named VidBrowse (Bharatbhai Ahir). These names point to the same group of individual developers skimming store gray-area keywords, **unverified** whether they're related.

### 5. Differentiation

From the product alone there's no differentiation; cloning a fake-camera app was already common. The real edge is **the name and the review-passing packaging** : grabbing the "Umingle" search results in the App Store before umingle.com ships a native app, using a UI that looks like a video call so deceived users don't delete it right away, while keeping the compliance line of "we clearly state it's not a chat." That's the full reason it ran.

### 6. How many people have seen it

The app has no media coverage and nothing on X (x-radar 60 days 0 posts), and no one has shared revenue. The official Umingle is hot on TikTok and review sites, but nobody has written about this iOS shell. Still, the "ride the web chat brand name" playbook already has at least 2–3 similar cases (Thundr, Omezy, Uhmegle on Play), which is no secret in gray-market developer circles.

### 7. What others can learn

- Look for gaps where a "popular web brand + no native app" exists (check Google Trends and Semrush first, then search the brand name in the App Store to see if the official app exists). This is the cheapest source of organic traffic.

- Pass review with a compliant shell (Reference or Entertainment category, with a clear disclaimer in the description), and make the UI visually close to what users expect to lower the share who uninstall immediately.

- Target small countries and low-barrier category charts: in Indonesia and the Philippines, the Reference chart can reach the top with a few dozen ratings a day.

- Risk: Umingle holds a UK trademark (UK00004280309), and has already filed a WIPO complaint that got a knockoff app removed from Google Play, so apps like this can be taken down at any time after a trademark complaint. This is short-term arbitrage, not a business that can last.

### 8. Uncertain

- Revenue scale: almost no Top Grossing ranking, and ad revenue isn't visible.

- The version history starts directly at 3.0 with the copyright reading "CamCircle": whether this is an older app renamed, or first submitted under another name and later changed to Umingle, is unverified (the library only starts recording at 10-28, so no rename history is visible).

- Whether it buys Apple Search Ads on the brand term: no data.

- Whether it solicits positive reviews: the 4.46 average and the content of the bad reviews don't match, but the evidence is only inference.

- How big the takedown risk is and when it might happen: unknown.

This article was written by AI from public data and the data we collect daily. Numbers are sourced, and inferences are labeled.