Reviews

Augmented reality: not just for Pokemon anymore.

AR has long been a holy grail of the tech world. Everyone wants to do it, but almost no one is doing it well. The explosive popularity of Pokemon Go proved commercially successful AR is finally within reach, and if there’s any industry other than gaming that seems perfect for this futuristic tech, it’s dating.

A Los Angeles company announced in June that it plans to launch the world’s first augmented reality dating app later this year. Called FlirtAR, the app will use a range of innovative solutions to identify nearby daters, measure compatibility, and make matches with just a point of your smartphone.

"FlirtAR will use facial recognition, geolocation, and augmented reality to show user dating profiles and begin conversations with potential dates in the real world and in real time," said founder Renan Godinho.

Dating apps aren’t afraid to embrace trends. Love bacon? Or beards? Or Canadians? There’s an app for that. Dozens of niche services capitalize on the latest news and pop culture obsessions, yet there’s one trend online dating has strangely skipped over: video.

Though Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat put video front-and-center, the majority of big-name dating apps don’t allow users to share or upload videos. Attempts to integrate video, or launch new apps that are video-focused, have largely failed.

Does video dating belong to the ‘80s, when singles would record personal profiles on VHS in hopes of being distributed to a compatible match?

First Dating App Screen Shots

Modern dating tends to follow a predictable path: swipe right, start chatting, hope you don’t get ghosted, meet in person, continue chatting, hope you don’t get ghosted…

A new app aims to shake up the status quo by skipping straight to the meeting - no swiping, no chatting, just good ol’ fashioned face-to-face contact. First invites singles with a sense of adventure to brave the ultimate, tech-assisted blind date.

The basic premise is simple. You post a date idea and a time. Other users can submit to join you. You pick a winner from the submissions. And then… you just show up for the date. There’s no communication ahead of time, no hours wasted trying to decipher each other’s emojis. It’s either your worst nightmare or exactly what you think online dating lacks.

Anyone who has waded into the murky waters of online dating knows the stress of trying to interpret a match’s messages. You analyze (make that over-analyze) every punctuation mark and emoticon, searching for secret meanings and signs of interest. Was that “Hey” a cut and paste sent to dozens of other daters, or was it a special “Hey” just for you?

Instant Relationship Advice (formerly called WittyThumbs) is here to make translating online dating messages a little easier. The website is the inaugural product from Hermes, a Y Combinator-backed startup that wants to help singles improve their online dating conversations via educational content and expert help.

Founders Liron Shapira and Lior Gotesman started the company on the premise that using a website or an app to find dates is no longer the hard part - instead, the greatest challenge singles face is figuring out what to say to catch someone’s attention.

Dating apps are all about the swipes. In fact, the process can almost feel game-like, with users swiping left and right as quickly as possible, and it seems there’s an endless supply of potential matches.

So what happens when a new dating app forces you to slow down? It seems counter-intuitive in the current online dating market, but one company wants to try and take it slow.

Appetence is a new app that launched in May for iOS, and focuses on the art of conversation before all information about a match can be revealed.

When you download the app, you are asked a series of questions about preferences relating to music, food, TV, books, movies, and even pets. The app then shows you profiles that are compatible – sort of.

Though a dating app may seem like the closest thing tech-obsessed Millennials have to a matchmaker, the ancient art of playing cupid isn’t dead yet.

Wingman, a new mobile matchmaking app, recently conducted its first Wingman Assisted Romance Survey. The study reveals that most Millennials (90%), whether they’re single or in a relationship, say they would enjoy acting as matchmaker for their friends. And what’s more, they’re confident about their skills. Almost 70% said they thought they’d be better at picking matches for their friends than their friends would be at picking their own dates.

“A large majority of the people we spoke to at length felt that they knew their friends well enough to pick people they should meet and many felt they absolutely knew them better than their friends know themselves,” said Wingman founder Tina Wilson. “Millennials tend to be confident and that confidence clearly extends to the widespread belief we found that many millennials are convinced they can be great matchmakers for their friends."