Tips
After reviewing online dating sites for the last five years we thought it was time to switch platforms for a rundown of the best dating apps around on mobiles and tablets…
Let’s see if our smartphones any smarter than regular old dating sites when looking for love.
Digital Love: Test-Driving Dating App MeetMoi NOW. By Anna Lindow. 12/09/10 4:36pm. In 1995, I won a poetry contest for kids on Compuserve. The prize was an America’s Funniest Home Videos t. Online Dating at Match.com. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people find love on Match.com. Match.com pioneered the Internet dating industry, launching in 1995 and today serves millions of singles in 24 countries.Match.com continues to redefine the way single men and single women meet, flirt, date and fall in love, proving time and again that you can make love happen through online dating. I use the mobile version of an online dating site on my Droid.But, that’s more like mobile-access, not mobile dating.Mobile dating, or Dating 3.0 (as I like to call it), is the use of an app specifically dedicated to using your cell phone’s background processing capabilities to deliver profiles to your cell based on your real-time location. MeetMoi is a location-based dating app that started in 2007. Today, the company has finally crossed three million users. To coincide with this achievement, MeetMoi has a big app update coming today with iPhone 5 compatibility and Facebook Connect.
Although we ourselves prefer the more traditional methods of online dating because we think it gives us more opportunities and more in-depth look, we can’t ignore the fact that there are hundreds of mobile apps out there all devoted to the same cause: how to find a date. Bear in mind though that those using computer dating sites are more likely to look for serious and long-term relationships whereas the apps tend to be more for those looking for a date for the same night.
Right, let’s look at the best dating apps out there.
Skout App
Cost:Free | Skout+ (ad-free): £1.99 | Buy points from: £2.99 for 500
A global network app, which allows you to meet other users through GPS. Skout shows you when other active users are within walking distance and allows you to contact them through instant messaging. Once you register and enter some information about yourself and your preferences, the system will find you similar people who are near you. It’s also got the option of Facebook integration and you can buy in-app points for sending virtual gifts and releasing photos.
There are lots of options for flirting – you can even play games together through your smartphones. It used to be just a dating app, however now it’s also meant to find friends or take part in social activities. And you don’t have to worry about the positioning – they don’t point to your exact location, it’s only for you to decide who you give it out to.
There’s a wide range of members and you can even chat to people across the globe if you’ve had enough of those close by!
Skout website | iPhone | Android
Match.com App
Cost:Free with full subscription | 1 week: £4.99 | 1 month: £14.99
If you have a match.com account already you can, of course, just log in using your details and use the app just like you’d use the website version. The simple and clean design makes it a breath of fresh air to use compared to some mobile apps which bombard you with information and ads.
If you’re not yet a user of Match.com, you’ll be able to create your profile and start browsing and searching immediately. Like other apps it allows you to find dates near your location and get in touch with them – but the latter can only be done if you’re a paid user. What’s even better: you get real-time profile alerts so you’ll never miss a thing happening on Match.
App only packages have a reduced price compared with the regular web price (around 50% cheaper) so you can make some savings if you’ll only be using the app.
Match.com website | iPhone | Android | Windows | Nokia
Zoosk App
Cost:Free to browse | 1 month: £29.99 | 3 months: £64.99 | 6 months: £89.99
Zoosk makes app based dating easier because it’s been developed to combine your Facebook account with your Zoosk profiles, thus making the sign-up and profile writing process easier. Your FB friends can even help you out and recommend you to their friends as a potential date. Therefore it’s not the most covert and anonymous service (although you don’t have to synch with Facebook) but suits well for all those who’re not embarrassed by their single status and are keen to find a likeminded partner with mutual friends. Also, the interaction within the app is simple as it can be done on Facebook.
Zoosk website | iPhone | Android
eHarmony App
Cost:Free with full subscription (link to our article with current subscription prices)
eHarmony is a fairly serious dating site, meant for those looking for long-term partners. Therefore the idea of their own dating app seems a little strange but in reality it’s just a scaled-down version of their website. There is, of course, no GPS-positioning and/or real-time chat, but if you’re already an eHarmony user it gives you an option to use it on the go.
It’s recently been redesigned and we liked the new look and feel. At the moment there’s no mobile pricing so you need to subscribe with the regular website member rates to use the apps. It’s definitely not the cheapest site around but they’re the best site we’ve reviewed when it comes to compatibility matching so worth a shot if that’s important to you.
eHarmony Mobile | iPhone | iPad | Android
Badoo Dating app
Cost:Free to browse | 100 credits: £1.99 | 550 credits: £7.49 | Super Powers from: £2.49
An extremely popular dating app with hundreds of thousands of users. Although it’s free to donwload you essentially need to purchase or earn credits in order to use all the features and chat to people. ‘Super Powers’ can also be bought which gives you access to more features too.
It enables you to log in with Facebook, therefore increasing the user numbers manifold. So get your scrolling muscles limbered up as you’ll need to do a lot of it with the sheer number of profiles to get through.
You can rate photos out of 10, participate in ‘Encounters’ where you’re shown potential matches to rate or you can send old-fashioned regular messages.
badoo website | iPhone | Android
MeetMe Dating App
Cost:Free to browse | 250 credits: £2.99 | 625 credits: £6.99 | Spotlights from: £1.99
MeetMe is one of the best dating apps around that’s also geared towards making new friends, letting you find out who’s nearby and who’s ready to chat and meet.
It’s kind of like Facebook but with way more options for interacting and dating though you’ll need to buy credits to be able to access all the features.
What it does is the same as the other location-pinpointing apps do: notify you when there’s another user nearby that you might be interested in. It offers a conversation LiveFeed and an Ask Me feature where you can ask and answer anything, but other than that it’s just another dating app.
MeetMe website | iPhone | Android
How About We Dating App
Cost:Free to browse | 1 month: $27.99 | 3 months: $54.99 | 6 months: $75.00
Nicely designed app (probably the best of the bunch) that’s a real pleasure to use – if only there were more UK based members!
Mainly a US-based app, this dating app is for people who already have an idea of what they’d like to do.
You sign up, suggest a date idea – it starts with ‘how about we…’ and then your suggestion follows. The system then will find you the list of all the users who would like to do something similar. Even couples can sign up to get cool double date ideas.
How About We website | iPhone | Android
MiuMeet Dating App
Cost:Free to browse and send messages | VIP Access: 3 months: $29.97
Just like Skout, MiuMeet uses GPS to pinpoint the user’s location so that they can search for members nearby. However, it works more like a traditional dating site – you can check out people who are near you. You can chat to dates over the phone or send messages or easily set up real life dates.
What Is The Best App Dating
Also, the users can import photos from Facebook, which makes it easy to add photos to your profile – though this is optional too.
There weren’t so many members in our area as there are on some of the best dating apps we tried but at least MiuMeet is free to message and chat. The VIP addons (in dollars) takes away ads, gives your messages and profile priority and you can see who’s visited your profile.
MiuMeet Play Store | iPhone | Android
MeetMoi Dating App
Cost:Free to browse | 1 week: $2.99 | 1 month: $13.99 | 3 months: $24.99
Unlike some other dating apps, MeetMoi doesn’t give you a huge list of people nearby who you can pick out from a list – instead it focuses on trying to get you paired up with someone similar.
Your profile appears on his/her phone while his or her profile comes up on your screen – then you have an opportunity to decide whether they’re your type or not and whether you’d like to meet up. The catch is that it notifies you when the match is close to you, which means you can meet right there and then, should you so wish. So, what it really does, is just facilitate a real-life dating process. However, the people it selected for us were all over Europe and we didn’t get sent anyone from our area.
It’s free to browse and send winks but you’ll need to upgrade to Premium to be able to send unlimited messages and get priority placement in the search. Prices are in dollars.
MeetMoi website | iPhone | Android
Best Dating Apps
And that’s the end of our Best Dating Apps in the UK article, we hope you’ve found it useful!
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In 1995, I won a poetry contest for kids on Compuserve. The prize was an America’s Funniest Home Videos t-shirt. Once I repressed got over my dad’s refusal to let me get AOL (FATHER, WHY?!) thereby rendering me a giant loser/pariah who couldn’t instant message, I became hooked on using the internet for everything possible, even if it had to be via Compuserve.
Fifteen years later, I’ve upgraded to broadband, kind of wish I still had the AFHV t-shirt, and still like to use the internet for everything possible. The realm of “everything” has expanded well beyond poetry contests, though, to include more grown-up pursuits such as watching cat videos and dating. In fact, I have regaled many a dinner party with my collection of OKCupid horror stories and victories (the victories occur less frequently). But no matter how many times I am forced to listen to a date sing MGMT at karaoke after six shots of vodka (this happened), I’m always open to trying the latest onlinedatingplatform, because hey–you never know.
So, when I was recently invited to attend an event a new online dating startup, Meetmoi, was hosting, I jumped. As it turned out, this wasn’t your typical startup event: I wasn’t expected to select an outfit that exudes professionalism yet joie de vivre, show up at a venue, put on a nametag emblazoned with my Twitter handle, and get to mingling. Instead, I was instructed to turn my phone on, sit back, and wait.
Unlike other online dating communities, Meetmoi doesn’t ask users to filter through potential matches based on their preferences (“You’re a Scorpio with an average build who likes but doesn’t own amphibians!? ME TOO”). In lieu of active searching, users install an app called MeetmoiNOW on their smartphones. They don’t hear a peep until matches that meet their pre-specified guidelines wander into the vicinity. Then, and only then, MeetmoiNOW sends an alert, which arrives in the form of a kitschy heart inscribed with a compass-like arrow in the notification bar. If both users indicate interest by “accepting” the match, a chat functionality is enabled and they can figure out how to meet up right then and there.
The company had cooked up a special promotion, entitled “Drinks on Us,” whereby if two participants met up at a predetermined bar suggested by Meetmoi via email, their first round of drinks would be on the house. Free things appeal to me as a general rule, and I was also intrigued by the spontaneous nature of the mission I’d chosen to accept. There’s something a little sterile–and perhaps a little reminiscent of junior high–about instant messaging with a potential date. Dropping into a corner cafe at a moment’s notice, on the other hand, is downright serendipitous! And it’s appealing in the way that a Lifetime Movie Network feature starring Jennie Garth is appealing. A little farfetched, but likely not without entertainment value.
Meetmoi Dating App Download
In practice, though, my attempt to land a date NOW proved a bit more difficult than anticipated. The freeform event lasted for a week, Monday through Friday. Monday, I was out of town. On Tuesday evening, back in the city, my phone buzzed–potential matches were within range.
Surprisingly, these men seemed normal, and so, purely as a matter of professional curiosity, I began chatting with them on my way to an industry event (the New York Tech Meetup–sweet irony).
A conversation with one clean cut, criteria-meeting bachelor trailed off. But another, with a soulful-looking guitar player (musical hobbyists, my Achilles heel!) got to the point of discussing location. I was walking past Washington Square Park, hoping we wouldn’t have to meet at Josie Woods, when my potential date dropped the bomb that he was all the way over in Midtown East. Close as the crow flies, but not close enough for an immediate drink. I headed into the NYU auditorium to distract myself with my personal favorite geek panacea: tech demos.
When Wednesday evening rolled around, I felt the now familiar vibrating signal that indicates a nearby match. Another viable candidate popped up. But there was no reason to engage–I was already on the way to meet friends for drinks and couldn’t take a detour to an impromptu meeting. By Friday, my proverbial battery–not to mention my cell phone’s–was exhausted from the missed connections. A match came along, and though he seemed like a gainfully employed, dashing fellow, I couldn’t stomach the 10 year-plus age difference, and I declined.
And just like that, the week, and the offer for free drinks, had passed me by. Still, the application hadn’t failed exactly–it had put me in contact with people I actually sort of wanted to meet. But now, in the “matches” tab, there was a graveyard of pictures marked “expired”–the connections I wasn’t able to act on in time. I was the one who had failed, hesitating when I should have been prepared to meet someone NOW.
Despite the undeniable efficiency of most online dating sites, I still find myself—and many other single New Yorkers I know—kvetching about the inorganic nature of paging through all those disembodied profiles. But if we weren’t so overscheduled to begin with, maybe we’d have time to meet people IRL, if you will. MeetMoiNOW aims to facilitate those in-person meetings, yet it was still so easy to pass each other by. We’re booked.
Don’t get me wrong–I love OKCupid. But anyone who’s ever tried to sift through their matches, listlessly sorting people by language spoken (I prefer dates to speak English, but did you know that C++ is a possible selection too?), knows that having the right person sent directly to you like a mobile gift is an enticing proposition. Yet in order to let spontaneous matching work its magic, I knew I’d have to carve out some more room for spontaneity itself in my life.
Several days after the Drinks on Us event had ended, the telltale heart showed up in my notification bar. This time, I was ready. The suggested match fit the bill–tall, dark, and handsome enough–and I accepted right away. And waited. And waited. Perhaps stuck in the subway, or in a meeting, or just uninterested in a 5’4″ Sagittarius with a petite build, my would-be Romeo was taking his time. After an hour, a message showed up below his username: “He didn’t respond in time.” I accepted the dose of electronic justice and vowed to keep on trying, free drinks or not.
alindow [at] observer.com