Google Gemini Becomes the #1 Free iPhone App in the U.S.

Google’s Gemini app has exploded in popularity — fueled in part by its Nano Kale image-editing model, which is quickly becoming a viral hit. As of Friday evening, Gemini now sits at the top spot on Apple’s U.S. App Store chart for free apps. ChatGPT holds second place, with Meta’s Threads taking the third podium position.

Google is dominating the charts overall — the Google Search app is ranked sixth, Google Maps eighth, Chrome thirteenth, and Gmail twenty-first.

Outside the U.S., Gemini is still climbing fast, currently sitting at #2 in both Canada and the UK.

Since its launch on August 26, Gemini has attracted over 23 million new users by September 9. In that short span, Nano Kale has been used to edit more than 500 million images — a staggering adoption rate that highlights just how viral the tool has become.

The model’s popularity is driven by its ability to maintain character consistency and visual fidelity, allowing users to transform styles, create new images, and even chain multiple photos together for interactive editing.

Free users can generate or edit up to 100 images per day, while subscribers (starting at $19.99/month) can crank out up to 1,000 images daily.