The team of former Googlers behind the 3D design app Rooms from Things, Inc. has announced their latest project: a playful AI photo editor called Mixup. The iOS-only app allows anyone to create new AI-generated photos using “recipes.” Recipes are like Mad Libs-style fill-in-the-blank prompts for photos, text, or sketches.
For example, you can have Mixup turn a scribbled sketch into a beautiful Renaissance painting or reimagine your pet in a funny Halloween costume. You can also create something even more ridiculous, such as using a selfie to see how you would look with a different hairstyle or imagining your friend transformed into an Italian brain rotten figure.
The app is built on top of Google’s Nano Banana, but the “recipe” format opens up new ways to interact with the model and turns the generation tool into an online party game.
“What[Nano Banana]can do that no previous model has been able to do is take an image of the user and maintain it in a convincing, non-creepy way,” said Jason Toff, founder and CEO of Things, Inc. His background also includes time spent working on experimental apps within Big Tech companies like Google and Meta, and in product management at Twitter.
But what makes Mixup especially fun to use is that the app’s “recipes” (user-generated AI prompts) can be shared.
“Generative AI is very powerful, but most of the time, when you access these tools, this is a text box. Come up with something creative. So what are you going to write?” Tov said of the shortcomings his team sees in the current AI environment.
“So you don’t have to be creative and think about what to create, you just fill in the blanks when you see something that works,” he said.
After users create a new prompt in Mixup, they can choose to publish it to a public feed along with a photo of the results, or download it for personal use. Other users can see the photo from your feed and tap the Try Recipe button next to it. This allows anyone on the app to reuse recipes and generate images using their own photos, text, or doodles. (The latter can be created using a simple drawing feature within the app.)
The team believes that viewing photos alongside the recipes that created them can also help address the unpredictable nature of generated AI images.
“Another problem[with generative AI]is what we internally call the ‘slot machine’ problem, where you press a button and something comes out, and you press it again and something else comes out, and you don’t feel like you’re in control of the output,” Toff explained.
But with Mixup, users can see both the photo and the prompt that created it in one place, so they know what the output will be. If the author chooses to leave this setting on, they can also toggle the button to display both the before and after images.
Additionally, similar to OpenAI’s AI video app Sora, users can upload their own photos to Mixup to be used in AI images. If you choose to do so, anyone you follow within the app can create an AI image with your likeness. This is a feature called “mixable.”
The company envisions groups of friends following each other to take advantage of the feature, but it’s also possible that a creator class will 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 public, just upload it or don’t follow anyone.)
The app also uses OpenAI technology to address some of the expected moderation issues with AI images, but Toff admits that Mixup also relies heavily on Google’s built-in controls within the image model to limit things like sexual content and violence.
At the time of release, Mixup is optimized for iOS 26, but is supported on iOS 18 and later. If things go well, a web version and Android app may be added at a later date.
Free users receive 100 credits (equivalent to $4). An image, on the other hand, costs nearly 4 cents to produce. Once credits are exhausted, users can subscribe to different tiers offering 100, 250, or 500 credits per month.
The app will be available worldwide on November 21 at midnight on the App Store, but you’ll need an invitation to access it. TechCrunch readers can access using code TCHCRH (while code runs out). Mixup is available for pre-order ahead of release.
This post was updated after publication to note that the app’s release date is now November 21st, rather than the previously mentioned November 20th.
