Height is often a clinching factor on dating apps, so Tinder has finally joined the measurement party by rolling out height range selection for paying users in the app. Grindr has also further embraced a universal dating app truth recently, by making quick hook-ups via the app even easier, via a new social media feed-like function.
Elsewhere a new dating app flying in the face of AI message prompts is set to launch, while a new AI chatbot promises to give you closure if your date ghosts you.
All this and more in the latest of our monthly dating app news roundups.
Taller love stories on Tinder
Finding love with five words
A new dating app based around a ‘five word’ concept, and partly-inspired by Wordle, is set to launch June 2025.
On LoveJack, you choose five words to represent your profile on the app, which can be viewed by other users before they see your profile pictures. If the five words on a profile pique your interest, you can press and hold your phone screen to reveal their photos, then choose to potentially match with them.
The ‘five word’ thing was designed to move LoveJack away from the job resume style of many dating apps. The words you can choose can hint at anything from jokes to personality traits to what you had for lunch.
The app’s creators said that LoveJack was partly inspired by Wordle, and by the Webby Awards, which allows winners to make five-word speeches.
It’s set to launch on iOS soon in London, with plans to expand to US cities including New York, Boston and San Francisco. An Android version of the app is set to launch in India later in summer 2025.
With many dating apps launching AI features allowing you to have a chatbot come up with witty profile page blurbs and messages, could it be the case that with LoveJack fewer words hint at deeper connections?
If you want to find out, you can sign up to the LoveJack waiting list.
Grindr’s “intention-based” hook-up feed
Grindr has leaned further into its reputation as the go-to ‘instant hook-up’ gay app by rolling out a posting function called Right Now to all its users, following regional tests.
Right Now looks like a social media feed within Grindr, and is separate to the app’s main grid. You can post updates on the Right Now feed, say what you’re looking to meet someone for, and activate a toggle saying you can host. The posts delete after one hour, making it doubly clear that the function is designed to make quick hook-ups easier.
Grindr says that users in some locations get free hour-long Right Now sessions, and that in the future sessions will be available to buy in the app.
AJ Balance, Grindr’s chief product officer, said: “We built this intention-based feature based on feedback from our community so they can connect with like-minded people without wasting time on mismatched expectations.”
AI chatbot provides ghosting Closure
A new AI chatbot designed to give you closure after being ghosted – the scourge of the dating app world – has been launched.
Closure offers a text chat simulating an exchange with a former long-term partner, date partner or friend who has ghosted you. You give the chatbot details about the ghoster, then type in some specifics about your relationship and/or dates, then begin the text chat with the AI replica, who invariably kindly gives you the reasons why they ghosted you.
Is this real closure, though? Some online reviews have suggested so, including write-ups about years-long relationships that ended in ghosting, which are, shall we say, almost unbelievable.
Still, if it helps it helps. And if it doesn’t, there’s always that big punch-bag at the gym.
Match Group gets HER
The dating app industry may be in gradual decline, but Match Group is still speculating to accumulate, and has bought the dating app HER for an undisclosed amount.
HER joins the likes of Tinder, OkCupid, Hinge, Plenty of Fish and many other dating apps and sites in the Match Group stable. HER is described by its creators as a sapphic app, with the word meaning attraction between women and femmes.
Robyn Exton, founder of HER, said that the acquisition of HER would allow the app to launch features faster, improve performance, trust, safety and moderation and “expand our reach and impact around the world”.
Exton said: “We are not a niche. We are not an afterthought. We are a global audience with a voice, a culture, and a future. And now we have the backing to build for that future with more care, more depth, and even more ambition.”
Some people have moaned online about the acquisition, saying they’re worried about their data now HER was in new hands.
Speaking of HER, Spencer Rascoff, Match Group’s CEO, said Match Group would “protect it and help it grow even stronger”.
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