apps

Tinder, the hugely successfully dating app, will soon be a party game for the whole family.

Just in time for the holidays, Tinder comes to Apple TV, which the company is hoping will make for a new Christmas tradition: Helping your sad child with their sad dating life.

via GIPHY

In a press release, Tinder announced their excitement for making Tinder a part of family bonding time. For some reason Tinder is really invested in the idea of the family gathering around the TV and deciding who you hook up with next. In a press release, they pitch a scenario:

“No phones at the dinner table? No problem. Now you can spot Swipe Right potential from across the room. Need a second opinion before you Super Like? Good news: the cousins from Omaha just rolled in. Plus, why swipe alone when you can let Aunt Donna have a say? She’s known you since you were two; she’s watched you grow. If she says you should Swipe Right on that nice girl in the penguin costume, you Swipe Right on that nice girl in the penguin costume. Seriously man, show Aunt Donna some respect.”

They are really concerned with Aunt Donna, considering “she’s known you since you were two; she’s watched you grow.” This is very gross.

The instructions stay on brand:

1. Go to the App Store on your Apple TV and download Tinder.
2. Follow the instructions on screen to log in.
3. Start swiping! With Tinder on Apple TV, you can: Click the trackpad to view more details about a profile Swipe Left, Swipe Right and Super Like by Swiping Up Shake the remote to Rewind your swipe if you're a Tinder Plus subscriber.
4. When you're done swiping, sign out and give your friends (or sister) a chance to swipe.”

Yeah, let your sister have a turn. Enjoy Tinder with your sister, Aunt Donna, and the rest of your family because that’s not weird at all.

Anyway, Tinder is coming to Apple TV with a new remote so you can blankly swipe left or right and hope that someone writes you back. Only now, your family can help you choose who you hook up with. How did we ever get by without having Tinder to gross us out?

They have a whole host of videos of the family enjoying Tinder together — again, this is such a strange ad campaign. You can check them out here, if you want to get lost in the saga that is this family using Tinder together. 

As if Über’s problems with sexual contact in their cars weren’t bad enough, now they’re politely asking their passengers to stop being so creepy.

QZ points out that, since it’s release, many people were using Über Pool as a place hook up. They write, “Pundits called ride-sharing cars the 'four-wheeled yentas,' 'the new Tinder,' and, you know, a way 'to get laid now.' One driver ran a dating game show in his car.” This comes hot off numerous, awful accounts of people complaining about drivers making unwanted sexual advances on passengers, and the company not doing much about it.

via Reddit

The ride-sharing company has updated their Community Guidelines, particularly those using Über Pool, asking passengers to “give riders and drivers personal space”:

We all value our personal space and privacy. It’s OK to chat with other people in the car. But please don’t comment on someone’s appearance or ask whether they are single. As a passenger, if you need to make a phone call, keep your voice down to avoid disturbing your driver or other riders. And don’t touch or flirt with other people in the car. As a reminder, Über has a no sex rule. That’s no sexual conduct between drivers and riders, no matter what.

Whether or not this will actually help Über’s problem with sexual contact is still unknown, but until then, Über would like to remind you that its service is not Tinder, so just use Tinder, you creeps.

via Empire Fox

Hillary Clinton's campaign with a new tool for Facebook and Twitter. It lets users put Trump quotes on their profile pictures. So go and Trump yourself!

Warning: using the app will give the campaign access to your profile and email address...

So well, this is what it's come to huh? No, not actually; but it's only a matter of time before this laughable commentary on gettin' offended becomes a reality.

“From the color of your Starbucks cup to a lion being shot in Africa, don’t miss your chance to get offended today about an issue you didn’t know existed yesterday!”

Sh*t, indeed.  

A new app is makes it possible search for a nail polish to match anything you can take a picture of. 



When you find the nail polish you were looking for, you can favorite it or even buy it.

Facebook is infiltrating your office with the release of a new iOS and Android app called "Work," which will initially only available to a limited number of companies participating the pilot.

The new app isn't exactly the Facebook you are used to. It's an internal social network designed as a communication tool for companies to collaborate on projects without using email.

In other words, it's not for watching cat videos, it's for doing your job.

The new app uses the same interface as the standard Facebook app, but the information is private within your company, and you can create individual groups for specific projects.

Users can create a separate login or link their personal accounts to the professional accounts, but the information posted for work stays in the Work account.

There are no ads and it's free at the moment, but Facebook will most likely charge a subscription fee at some point, according to WSJ.

Now I don't need to know math to know math!

The "Ebola Tracker" app and its sister site, EbolaNear.me, use your computer or phone's location data to tell you the nearest case of Ebola. By putting some stark numbers between the reality of Ebola and what you hear on the news, the developers hope to raise awareness of the fear-based reporting that has covered the disease.

Sexual consent is something that you should always get from your partner before you bang. But is an app really the best way to go about getting it?

For starters, talk about a moodkiller. "Here, before we go any further, let me have you complete this form on my phone. So hawt."

Second, if someone is "pretty wasted," as one of the app's sobriety options reads, are they going to truthfully report said sobriety while they're drunk, knowing full well that marking "pretty wasted" kills the consent process? If you're drunk and h0rny, you're drunk and h0rny, and your phone yapping at you saying that you don't give consent is only liable to piss you off, not stop what you're about to do.

Third, if one party does in fact revoke consent mid-sex, what are you doing to do? Pull out your phone again and change your answer from "I'm Good2Go" to "No, Thanks?"

Fourth, tying into the last point, what is the app actually meant to accomplish from a legal perspective? How is someone going to prove that they revoked consent when they originally put "I'm Good2Go" at the start of the encounter?

"You see, Your Honor, I know I said that I was Good2Go, but then I changed my mind and was Bad2Go like five minutes in!"

"Too bad! The app says you were Good2Go and that's it! Case closed!"

Last, but perhaps not least, I can barely type my lock screen password in while I'm drunk. Am I really going to be able choose consent, choose my (truthful) sobriety level, put in my phone number and create a password all as quickly as they claim you can? Unlikely.

All in all, sexual consent isn't just a good idea: it's mandatory. End of story. But bringing in a confusing app complete with phone numbers, passwords, and dubious legal authority might not be the best way to get it.

Plus it just ends up reminding me of this:

"'Yo' is a single-tap zero character communication tool. Yo is everything and anything, it all depends on you, the recipient and the time of the Yo," according to the app store description.

Developed by San Francisco-based Life Before Us, LLC, the app's creators describe it as "the simplest & most efficient communication tool in the world."

And it is really as simple as it sounds.

Download it, choose the friends you want to send your "Yo" greeting to, and they get a push notification on their phone and that's it. Seriously.

New York developer Mike Lazer-Walker developed WhatsApplebees (like WhatsApp, get it?) as a snarky commentary on the state of boneheaded social media attempts by big business. Use the app to find and connect with Applebee's fans in your area and around the world, the promise goes, but (un?)fortunately it's only an unofficial pet project. When you think about it though, a corporate-sponsored social media and messaging app doesn't seem that far-fetched, does it?

Here's the premise behind the mobile app Cloak: Cloak will scrub the data of your "friends" using their Instagram and Foursquare information (remember, these are things they voluntarily give out) and display them on a map using your phone's GPS. Just like that, you can completely avoid them in real time as they update their information. There's a few problems, of course. Namely, you're only going to be able to avoid people that incessantly update their every move on social media - though to be fair that seems like the perfect kind of person to excise from your life forever.

Then there's another matter entirely, that this is actually kind of a dream program for stalkers. So, uh, double-edged sword I guess?

Through pockets...