Japanese app Crabhouse had to change its name because of Clubhouse

Who would have thought that there would be a social media app which lets you enter a chat room as a virtual crab called Crabhouse? And who would have thought that it would be made to change its name to Crabhome after it sounded “too similar” to the audio-chat app Clubhouse?

Crabhouse—an app that is only about a month old—was created by Japanese developer Ryota Ikegai. However, according to Japan Today it has already gotten over 150,000 downloads and nearly 2,000 five-star reviews on the App Store. 

Crabhouse is a quirky social media app which lets you come in a virtual “house” as a little crab. Other people as little crabs would also be in the same house, and you’re able to read that other crabs are saying by tapping on the crabs.

The app might be totally different from the invite-only audio-chat platform Clubhouse, and it seems like a harmless play on words. But Apple didn’t see it that way.

Crabhouse developer Ryota Ikegai tweeted on 22 February that his Crabhouse update “was rejected by the App Store”. He also said that Apple mentioned the reason was because the app’s name was “confusing”.

“There are already other apps that go beyond that by having the exact same name as Clubhouse, so why is mine the ‘confusing’ one? How do I overturn this?! Engineers, help!” continued Ikegai.

Its name is more so similar to Clubhouse when it’s being written in Japanese. The Japanese pronunciation of the letters ‘L’ and ‘R’ are largely interchangeable—as well as the English vowels ‘A’ and ‘U’. This would mean that the words ‘Crab’ and ‘Club’ when rendered in Japanese katakana script would sound identical.

After trying to hang onto the Crabhouse name, Ikegai changed the name to Crabhome in early March on the iOS. However, the Android version will remain as Crabhouse—especially as Clubhouse has not yet been released for Android.

Crabhome is currently not available on Malaysian iOS or on Android. But you can watch a video of what it’s like to spend time on it—it might not be as fun if you can’t read Japanese characters.

[ SOURCE, IMAGE SOURCE ]

Related reading