HQ Trivia, the alarmingly popular trivia app which increasingly threatens to take over our reality, has been iOS-only since its mid-October launch. The result has been that 12 times a week, iPhone owners have been swarmed by everyone else trying to get a slice of that sweet, addictive trivia.
The good news: Soon all those Android users will have their own version of the HQ app, meaning they can stop doubling up on your phone screen and shouting inaccurate answers. As noted by TechCrunch, HQ’s Android version (originally hinted to launch at Christmas) is now scheduled to launch by January 1st, 2018, after opening pre-registration on Christmas Eve on the Google Play store. Other sources indicate a beta version of the Android app is already available, though only for a limited number of users.
The bad news: HQ has already been pretty much unusable due to unexpectedly high demand for weeks as the number of users shot from the tens of thousands to the hundreds of thousands. The result has been that playing HQ can be a pretty tortuous experience, with host Scott Rogowsky continually locked in a rictus of low-res agony before lagging out of existence like Max Headroom trying to hijack your TV. It’s not uncommon for Rogowsky to disappear for 15 seconds or so before another question pops up on the screen, and he’s clearly spending half of the time he does appear on the screen stalling for the lag many users are experiencing.
There’s nearly double the number of Android smartphones in the US as Apple ones, which means the floodgates of HQ hell are about to open by January 1st. That almost certainly means we are in for a hell of a lot more buffering Scott, unless HQ has somehow figured out how to improve the user experience. If it hadn’t, well, novelty can only carry a broken app so far.
HQ really needs that extra audience if it hopes to come anywhere near its goal of a massive $US100 ($130) million valuation though, as TechCrunch noted, co-founders Rus Yusupov and Colin Kroll come with baggage that might spook off investors. Yusupov made headlines by screaming at a Daily Beast reporter and threatening to fire Rogowsky in November, while sources told Recode that Kroll has a reputation of “inappropriate behaviour” toward women.