Phone Pudding

First steps in the wonderful world of smartphone dating apps

In my investigation of innovative dating services, I cannot overlook smartphone dating apps.

In theory, it could be beautiful: sign up, switch on GPS, let the phone determine where you are, and if there are any matches nearby - preferably people who share an interest.

No more time wasted writing endless messages to people who have left the site years ago. No more looking at photoshopped pictures. Simply walk up to another user and say "Excuse me, are you that girl who loves skiing?"

I wanted to try out simply one app and review it, but I haven't been able to investigate any one app in depth. So instead, I'll just discuss the ones that I've found.

The okCupid app
Since I'm already on okCupid, I figured this app might be worth a try. Unfortunately, the blurb on Android Market doesn't make clear what the advantage of the app is when you're already on the site.
It doesn't mention location-based services, for example. In fact, it seems that the only use for this app is to automatically log on to okCupid. I'm already growing tired of writing messages to people who don't respond, I really don't see the advantage in doing so on a Tinkerbell-sized keyboard.

MyYearbook
MyYearbook is a social network, but for some reason decided that it's app should be listed in the Android Market with "dating" as a tag.

I installed the app and tried to sign up. Things went well until it demanded my e-mail address - AND password.

That's right - I had not even signed up, and it already demanded my e-mail password. I couldn't sign up without supplying this information. I decided to give it a bogus password to see what would happen. myYearbook tried to access my e-mail, told me the password was wrong, and if I would be so kind as to provide the right password.

....and I thought Facebook was aggressive!

Needless to say, I removed this app from my phone.

The eHarmony app
eHarmony is a paid service. Having been bitten by match.com and lexa.nl in the past, I am wary of paid services. In general, only paying members can respond to your messages on these things, meaning that 9 times out of 10, you might as well write a message to your TV set. (It's actually less idiotic since, if you switch on the TV set, it will at least say something back...)

So I read the blurb carefully. It uses the word "FREE" (in capitals) a lot, but if you read between the lines, you find that it will not let members respond for "FREE"

The blurb informs you that it's "better than the dating apps for Skout, Zoosk, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish or Match.com" - thereby violating Dutch advertising law, which states that you can only directly attack a competitor if you can prove your claims. eHarmony suggests their psychological test is more important than profile pictures. Unfortunately, they also inform you that their psychological test has been shortened optimized for smartphone users, who can take it in 10 minutes.
So what's going on? Apparently smartphone users get a dumbed-down version of the eHarmony test, so either their matching isn't as good as those who buy the original thing, or the matching algorithm isn't as sophisticated as we've always been told. But that casts the whole "better than those sites with profile pictures" in a very weird light.

...and it doesn't mention location-based services (GPS) either.

The app for eHarmony is "FREE", but it's utterly useless until you're a paying member of eHarmony. Until then, eHarmony gets to advertise itself on your phone for "FREE".


SinglesAroundMe
I was initially put off by this app, because the maker claimed that it "has taken the world by storm". Must have been a very quiet kind of storm then, I never even heard of this app until now.
But when I found that most dating apps fill their blurbs with self-aggrandizing drivel, I decided to give this one another look. Once I got past the usual blah-blah, I found that this one does use GPS. It even seems to have some users over here in the Netherlands.
It doesn't ask for all that many privileges, either - GPS, camera, a few more. I'm not quite sure why it wants the access to the camera, I guess it's so I can take a picture of myself for use with the app.
But this is one app I installed. Unfortunately, it is bug-ridden; most of the time, it tells me GPS isn't switched on, even though it is. This can sometimes be helped by killing the process in the Task Manager and re-starting it, but really... how user-friendly is that?
When I finally get through and log on, it tells me that logon fails because it "can't find www/login.htm" (or something like that).
I'll give this one a few more chances, but those bugs had better be fixed soon!

And finally...
On closing, there is one thing I'd like to say to the people who make smartphone dating apps:

I'm NOT interested in how "great" your app is. I'm NOT interested in your endless self-praise and your bad-mouthing the competition.

What I AM intersted in is: HOW does your app work, and HOW MANY members do you have in my country?

If you can't answer those two questions, you have no business writing dating apps.