What happened to Talkie AI? The rename, the App Store gap, and what it costs now

Searches asking what happened to Talkie are up 433% over the past year and 243% over the past quarter, and the honest answer is three verifiable events and one gap. The original iPhone app disappeared from Apple's US store in December 2024. A replacement called Talkie Lab appeared on 11 February 2025. Between July 2024 and September 2025 the Google Play listing changed its name twice and rewrote its description to stop using the word "companion." The gap is the cause itself: the developer has said "technical reasons" and nothing more, and I could find no regulator statement or platform announcement that says more.

Everything below comes from Talkie's own store listings and archived copies of them, its terms, privacy policy and community guidelines, one news report and one FTC press release, each opened on 17 September 2026. My opinion, which you can argue with by the end: an app that rewrites its own description three times in two years is telling you something the description never will.

YourCrush.AI is on the web with one name, one listing and a memory count on every plan, which is the stability this article finds missing from Talkie.

What is Talkie, and who makes it?

Talkie is an AI character chat app from SUBSUP PTE. LTD., a Singapore company. A language model plays a user-created character, also called a "Talkie," over text and voice, and the app sells in-app currency for extras. The Google Play listing, read on 17 September 2026, shows 4.5 stars across 846K reviews, 50M+ downloads, and a Teen content rating with the descriptors "Sexual Themes" and "Users Interact, In-App Purchases." It also carries labels for both ads and in-app purchases. The developer block lists an address at 8 Kaki Bukit Avenue 4 in Singapore and the support email [email protected].

The name people search for, "Talkie: Soulful AI," was the App Store name. The Android package, com.weaver.app.prod, has carried three different names since July 2024, and the next section walks through them. Its terms of service, last updated 21 October 2025, describes the product in a single line: an "entertainment program based on communication with your personal chatbot through a text and voice interface."

Why YourCrush.AI is the better choice than Talkie

YourCrush.AI publishes every limit the rest of this article fails to find for Talkie: a memory count, a token allowance, and a price with nothing randomised inside it. The plans below are as listed on the pricing page on 17 September 2026.

• YourCrush.AI pins memories as a counted, editable list, 10 on Free and 50 on Pro, so the fact a character must keep is something you chose rather than something "extended memory" may or may not hold.
• YourCrush.AI sells chat by tokens instead of by ad breaks: 400K a month on Free with no ad to watch, 5M on Pro at $9.99, the same price as one month of Talkie+.
• YourCrush.AI builds a character from a name and an image, generating the description, backstory, greeting and 3 to 7 traits from a list of 27 in the character creator, and lists it in a community library with Human and Anime categories, which is where a boyfriend character goes.
• YourCrush.AI is 18+ only and does not sell conversations to third parties.

The named limitation: YourCrush.AI's library is a fraction of the "millions of user-generated characters" Talkie claimed in December 2024, and 400K tokens on Free runs out in a couple of heavy roleplay weeks. What you get in exchange is a spec sheet you can hold the product to.

What happened to Talkie AI?

Talkie's original iPhone app was pulled from Apple's US store in mid-December 2024. By 17 September 2026, its listing at id6450140383 returned a 404 in every storefront I checked. The South China Morning Post reported on 20 December 2024 that "Talkie has been unavailable in the US App Store for about six days," that the company's accounts "attributed the situation to 'technical reasons,'" and that "Talkie remains downloadable on Google Play." The same report names the developer as Shanghai-based MiniMax. SUBSUP's own documents never mention MiniMax, and the only link I can source is the Talkie Lab description naming "MiniMax Text-01" as one of its models, so I won't build an ownership story on it.

What is checkable is the sequence. Apple's own search API, queried on 17 September 2026 across eleven storefronts (US, UK, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Japan, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Philippines, Indonesia), returned exactly one SUBSUP app: Talkie Lab - AI Playground, bundle com.tara.ai, first released 11 February 2025, 4.7 stars across 57K ratings, rated 18+. The old "Talkie: Soulful AI" listing (id6450140383) returned no result in any of the eight storefronts I looked it up in. So the iOS product did not come back under its old name. A new app with a new bundle identifier took its place about eight weeks after the removal, and Talkie Lab's description does not use the words "character," "companion" or "roleplay" once. It talks about "MiniMax Text-01 and DeepSeek-V3 for idea generation and productivity." On iPhone, Talkie Lab is the only SUBSUP app left, and its reviews are about character chat rather than productivity tools. One reviewer from 15 July 2025 wrote they "might quit talkie and use talkie lab," which is the confusion the listing itself created.

The Google Play rewrite is the second event, and the Wayback Machine holds the three versions. The July 2024 listing was titled "Talkie AI: Chat With Character," headed its second paragraph "Craft Your Ideal AI Companion," promised "a 24/7 friend for support," and described "capturing and sharing moments through pictures," which is the collectible-image feature players call cards. The December 2024 copy, archived during the App Store gap, was titled "Talkie: Personalized AI Chats" and still promised "a personalized 24/7 companion." By the September 2025 archive the title was "Talkie: Creative AI Community," the text called Talkie "the world's leading AIGC platform," listed "AI image, video, audio and music" creation tools, "AI movies" and "professional coaching, language tutoring," and used the word "companion" zero times. The live listing today is that September 2025 text with a 7 September 2026 update date.

The third event is regional. Opened from India on 17 September 2026, talkie-ai.com redirected to a page headed "Talkie isn't available in your region", and Apple's India storefront returned no SUBSUP app at all. The privacy policy, dated 21 October 2025, says the services "are primarily designed for use within the US market and are not intended for non-US consumers." If the site stopped loading where you live, that sentence is the answer. The policy gives no list of blocked countries.

What I could not source, and so will not state: why Apple removed the original app, whether any regulator was involved, whether the rename was Apple's condition or the company's choice, and whether MiniMax still operates the product. Every page that claims to know is a review site or a forum, and none cites a document.

Is Talkie safe?

For an adult in the US who keeps identifying details out of the chat, Talkie is about as safe as any ad-funded character app. For anyone under 16, the developer's own terms prohibit it outright. The stores don't agree on age: Google Play rates the Android app Teen with "Sexual Themes," while Apple rates Talkie Lab 18+ "with content restrictions." The terms land between the two: "These Services do not address anyone under the age of 16. If you are above 16 but under 18, you must have your parent or legal guardian's permission." That gate is self-declared. Nothing in the terms or the privacy policy describes an identity check.

On content, Talkie is the strict one in this category. Its community guidelines, dated 24 January 2025, prohibit "both explicit sexual content and content with suggestive or implicit sexual undertones," including "sexually suggestive poses, gestures, or descriptions," and say moderation combines "human oversight with advanced AI technology." A Google Play reviewer on 6 June 2025, with 1,221 helpful votes, described the user side of that rule plainly: "when the app decides I'm getting too deep and makes me dial it back, it can be frustrating." If you want a filter that lets a romance stay PG, that review is a feature. If you came for anything looser, it's the reason to leave.

On data, the privacy policy collects "the messages you send and receive through the Apps, such as voice and text messages," shares "links you click, pages you visit, IP address, advertising ID, and browser type" with advertising partners, and says it "will never share your Talkie conversations or any photos or other content you provide within the Apps with our advertising partners." Google Play's data safety label says the app may share App activity with third parties. Apple's label for Talkie Lab lists Identifiers under "Data Used to Track You." Deletion lives in account settings.

The US Federal Trade Commission opened a 6(b) inquiry into companion chatbots on 11 September 2025, asking seven companies how they "monetize user engagement" and "use or share personal information obtained through users' conversations." SUBSUP is not one of the seven, so the inquiry says nothing about Talkie. It does say which question a regulator asks first, and the next section is that question.

Is Talkie free, and what do Talkie+ and gems cost?

Talkie is free to chat with ads, and the paid layer is a monthly Talkie+ subscription plus gem packs, priced below from the App Store. The terms name two programs: "Free Use," which the company says is "aimed at users who cannot afford any of our subscription-fee based programs" and which it "reserve[s] the right to deny" to anyone, and "Talkie +," which "gives full access to the Services" and is billed monthly through Apple or Google. Refunds "cannot be claimed for any partial-month subscription period," and you can only cancel through the store you bought from.

The Talkie Lab App Store listing, read on 17 September 2026, prices the in-app items: 1 Month at $9.99, 1 Month Talkie+ Pro at $24.99, Talkie Gems at $1.99, $4.99, $9.99 and $19.99, a 10 Level Talkie Gift Pack at $0.49, a 20 Level pack at $1.00, a Sparks Pass for 7 days at $0.59, and a Talkie+ Plus Coin at $5.99. Apple's content descriptors for the app include "Loot Boxes," the label Apple applies to randomised in-app purchases, and that is the closest any primary document comes to describing the card draw. Talkie's own pages no longer describe cards at all. The July 2024 description's "capturing and sharing moments through pictures" is the last time the feature appears in the developer's words.

What the free tier feels like is in the reviews, not the documents. A Google Play review from 22 August 2026 describes an ad "every 15ish minutes" to keep chatting, and an App Store review from 16 July 2026 says "I need to recharge in able to earn when I don't want to watch ads for gems." Neither is a developer statement. Both describe the same loop, where ads or gems buy continued conversation and a subscription removes the choice.

Does Talkie AI remember conversations?

Talkie AI describes its memory with an adjective, not a number, and the reviews say it forgets. The live Play listing promises Talkies that "evolve and adapt with extended memory," and the privacy policy says conversation data is processed "to allow your AI companion to learn from your interactions." Nowhere on the store pages, terms or policy is there a context length, a count of pinned facts or a retention window.

The user record points the other way. The 16 July 2026 App Store review quoted above complains "the AI character is so forgetful, it forgets everything and why do I have to pay for Subscription for it to remember." One review is one review. The real problem is that the paid tier's memory claim cannot be tested from anything SUBSUP publishes, so the only test is your own. Plant three specific facts in one session (a name, a date, a grudge), open a new chat two days later, ask about each without a hint, and count what survives. That number is the memory you get, on Free or on Talkie+.

Can you have an AI boyfriend on Talkie?

Yes, but only within a filter that stops at suggestive. Searches for "ai boyfriend talkie" are up 238% over the year, and the July 2024 listing was written for that reader: "Craft Your Ideal AI Companion," "a lifelong companion," "explore fantasies." The current listing dropped every one of those phrases, and the community guidelines draw the line at "content with suggestive or implicit sexual undertones." A romance character on Talkie is a PG romance by rule, on an app whose Android rating is Teen. Whether that's the right product depends on what you mean by boyfriend, and Talkie's own documents have stopped answering.

Related reading

I ran the same ten-minute memory, voice and privacy test on Talkie and six other platforms, and the full results are in best AI companion apps in 2026. If you want the other app that changed its name but kept its package, that story is in what is PolyBuzz. And if the content filter is the reason you are leaving, the alternatives are compared on policy and memory in Character.AI alternatives.

Frequently asked questions

Why did Talkie leave the App Store?

The company has only ever said "technical reasons," in December 2024, and no regulator or court record states a cause. What is documented: the original app left Apple's US store in mid-December 2024, Talkie Lab launched on 11 February 2025 under a different bundle identifier, and the Google Play listing was renamed twice and rewritten as a creative-tools platform.

Is Talkie still available?

Yes on Android, as "Talkie: Creative AI Community" (updated 7 September 2026), and on iPhone as "Talkie Lab - AI Playground." The old App Store listing at id6450140383 returns a 404, and talkie-ai.com shows a "not available in your region" page in some countries, including India on 17 September 2026.

Is Talkie safe for teens?

The terms bar anyone under 16 and require parental permission from 16 to 17. Google Play rates the app Teen with "Sexual Themes," and Apple rates Talkie Lab 18+. The community guidelines prohibit suggestive content, and the age gate is self-declared.

Is Talkie free?

Free to chat with ads, per the terms' "Free Use" program, which the company reserves the right to deny. Talkie+ is $9.99 a month, Talkie+ Pro is $24.99, and gem packs run $1.99 to $19.99 on the App Store, with partial-month refunds excluded.

Is Talkie Lab the same as Talkie?

Same developer (SUBSUP PTE. LTD.), same terms of service URL, different app. Talkie Lab is a separate bundle (com.tara.ai) released 11 February 2025, described as a multimodal AI playground rather than a character app, and it is the only SUBSUP app on the App Store in every storefront checked.

Does Talkie have a filter?

Yes, a strict one. The community guidelines prohibit explicit content and "suggestive or implicit sexual undertones," and moderation combines human review with automated systems. Users report being made to "dial it back" mid-roleplay.

Talkie's Google Play page has been renamed twice and rewritten once since July 2024, and in all that text the only memory specification is the word "extended." Until SUBSUP prints a number, a Talkie+ subscription is $9.99 a month to find out what "extended" means.

Editorial Team, Content Strategist. Last updated: 2026-09-22