The ex-Googler team behind the 3D design app Rooms from Things, Inc. is out with its latest project: a playful AI photo editor called Mixup. The iOS-only app lets anyone create new AI-generated photos using “recipes,” which are like Mad Lib-style, fill-in-the-blank prompts for your photos, texts, or sketches.
For instance, you could ask Mixup to turn your scribbled sketch into a beautiful Renaissance painting, or to reimagine your pet in a funny Halloween costume. You could use a selfie to see what you’d look like with a different hairstyle, or create something even sillier — like envisioning a friend transformed into the form of Italian brainrot.
The app is built on top of Google’s Nano Banana, but the “recipe” format opens up a new way to interact with the model — turning a generative tool into an online party game.
“The thing that [Nano Banana] did that no model did before was that it could take your image and maintain it in a convincing way that wasn’t creepy,” said Things, Inc. founder and CEO Jason Toff, whose background includes working on experimental apps inside Big Tech companies like Google and Meta, as well as time spent managing product at Twitter.
But what makes Mixup particularly fun to use is that the app’s “recipes” — the user-generated AI prompts — are shareable.
“Generative AI is so powerful, and yet most of the time you go to these tools and it’s like, here’s your text box — come up with something creative. And what do you write?” Toff said, speaking to the shortcomings his team saw with the current AI landscape.
“And so, rather than having to be creative and think about what to create, you see something that worked, and you can just fill in the blanks,” he said.
After users create a new prompt in Mixup, they can choose to publish it along with the resulting photo to a public feed or just download it for personal use. From the feed, other users can view the photo and tap the button next to it to “Try recipe.” This allows anyone on the app to reuse the recipe to generate an image using their own photo, text, or doodles. (The latter can be made via a simple, in-app drawing feature.)
Seeing a photo alongside the recipe that created it can also help address the unpredictable nature of generative AI images, the team believes.
“Another problem [with generative AI] is what we were referring to internally as a ‘slot machine’ problem, where you push the button, something comes out, you push it again, something different comes out, and you don’t feel like you have control over the output,” Toff explained.
In Mixup, however, users can see both the photo and the prompt that created it in one place, giving them an idea of what their output would look like. They can also toggle a button to see both the before and after image, if the creator opts to leave this setting on.
Plus, similar to OpenAI’s AI video app Sora, users can upload their own photos to Mixup to use in their AI images. If you choose to do so, then any person you follow in the app can also create AI images with your likeness — a feature it calls “mixables.”
The company imagines that groups of friends would follow each other to take advantage of the feature, but a creator class could also potentially emerge on the platform — if they don’t mind seeing themselves mashed up in bizarre ways. (Of course, if you don’t want your image out there, either don’t upload it or don’t follow anyone.)
The app also uses OpenAI technology to handle some of the expected moderation concerns around AI imagery, but Toff admits that Mixup also leans heavily on Google’s built-in controls within its image model to restrict things like sexual content or violence.
At launch, Mixup is optimized for iOS 26 but is supported on iOS 18 and up. If it takes off, a web version or Android app may be added later.
Free users receive 100 credits, which equates to $4. Meanwhile, images cost nearly 4 cents to produce. When the credits run out, users can subscribe to different tiers offering 100, 250, or 500 credits per month.
The app launches at midnight on November 21 on the App Store globally, but will require an invite to get in. TechCrunch readers can use the code TCHCRH (until it runs out) to get in. Mixup is available for preorder ahead of its launch.
This post was updated after publication to note the app launches Nov. 21, not Nov. 20 as previously stated.
