{"id":293697,"date":"2025-12-01T21:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T21:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/293697\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T21:12:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T21:12:08","slug":"marques-brownlees-controversial-panels-app-is-shutting-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/293697\/","title":{"rendered":"Marques Brownlee&#8217;s controversial Panels app is shutting down"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Marques Brownlee&#8217;s Panels app <a data-i13n=\"cpos:1;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/panels.art\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:is shutting down on December 31;cpos:1;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">is shutting down on December 31<\/a>. The creators blame this on a shifting development team, as they weren&#8217;t able to &#8220;bring in collaborators who shared our passion and vision, and we weren&#8217;t able to find the right fit.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Annual subscribers will get a refund when the app shutters and any downloaded wallpapers will still be available to use. Additionally, the developers will be making the app&#8217;s code available to &#8220;allow anyone to build on what we started.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Brownlee, a popular tech YouTuber who goes by MKBHD, introduced the Panels app back in 2024. It sailed to the top of the various app charts, for a time, <a data-i13n=\"cpos:2;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/danidiplacido\/2024\/09\/25\/marques-brownlees-panels-backlash-explained\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:but was mired by controversy;cpos:2;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">but was mired by controversy<\/a>. It&#8217;s basically just a marketplace for smartphone wallpaper images, but one that requires a steep subscription price for real access. Angry consumers also complained that the app was plagued by intrusive ads and mandated intrusive data-tracking permissions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">MKBHD tried to assuage concerns by introducing a cheaper subscription tier and improving the free experience. However, it looks like the damage was done. Panels was a tough sell even without the frustrations, as not that many people want to spend real money on smartphone wallpapers. Maybe that idea would&#8217;ve flown when smartphones were still new and exciting, but that ship sailed over a decade ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marques Brownlee&#8217;s Panels app is shutting down on December 31. The creators blame this on a shifting development&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[118780,2306,118781,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-293697","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-marques-brownlee","9":"tag-mobile","10":"tag-panels","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}