Pair (YC W12), The Social Network For Two, Launches An Android App

http://mashable.com/2012/05/08/pair-android/

by jammur • 14 years ago

68 29 14 years ago

"Though some have dubbed Pair 'the perfect sexting app,' co-founder Oleg Kostour says the most-common activity on the app is actually doodling."

Anything to share about what people are doodling?

endersshadow• 14 years ago

I would hope that out of common courtesy they aren't taking a look through that. I'm not naive enough to believe they can't, just that this appears to facilitate private and intimate communication, so I would hope they don't.

blake8086• 14 years ago

How do they know this in a way that is respecting the privacy of their users?

lysol• 14 years ago

Usage statistics on how often the doodle functionality is used over photo sharing would be one way. You can collect these statistics anonymously or query these without viewing individual records.

sprobertson• 14 years ago

  SELECT action_type, COUNT(*) FROM pair_actions GROUP BY action_type;

rhizome• 14 years ago

FYI: different than the hosting company.

CosmicShadow• 14 years ago

Great to see more growth coming out of Waterloo startups!

mbesto• 14 years ago

How is a social network for two consider a social network?

sukuriant• 14 years ago

Buzz words for marketing

thechut2• 14 years ago

Thanks for bringing this to Android guys! Anyone from Pair have any comment on how they did their Android app? Native or Titanium/Phonegap style?

EDIT: I was not able to find the app by searching for pair in the Play Store. But they have a link to the online store on their website which worked. For those looking to download: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tenthbit.j...

rogerbinns• 14 years ago

I'm not from Pair but I can tell you after using apktool on their apk file.

It looks like a well written normal Android app supporting a variety of screen sizes on Android 2.2 and above. Text is only available in English. They use regular Android screen layouts and widgets inside (lists, images, text etc). The Android compatibility library is used (primarily fragments) so it should layout well no matter what. They have composed their app using numerous different Activities as is best practise for Android, although they force several into portrait mode.

Mixpanel is used for analytics. There are several "realtime" sockets related thirdparty libraries. All the code was Java (ie no C/C++/ObjC was involved).

I obviously can't see their source code, but based on what I do see they have a textbook example of how to write an Android app following best practises.

wallflower• 14 years ago

> after using apktool on their apk file

Check out Sony Ericsson's recently released ApkAnalyser

https://github.com/sonyericssondev/ApkAnalyser/wiki

jonnycowboy• 14 years ago

Never heard of this, but as somebody who travels and uses Skype all the time, this is a GREAT idea...

lexalizer• 14 years ago

Great app. I was in the 1st 10 people who downloaded and installed it. My gf was asking me just yesterday when this was going to come out. Until now we were using Path, now we've switched to Pair, it's still a bit buggy on Android, but it's much better than Path to keep in touch with just one person.

EREFUNDO• 14 years ago

I bet couples can find a lot of creative ways to use this, especially the touch vibrating feature. You can vote this comment negatively if you like but this is a very valid point I am making. This is as intimate as any app could get and there is a demand for this. Hey this is reality and we're all adults here. Gives more color to life and we only have one, enjoy it. Good work Pair team!

cluutran• 14 years ago

As someone who uses Facebook messaging for some of these things (not the best solution since the reminders/tasks etc. get lost in other conversational clutter), I think this is a great idea and execution! I would like to see the more practical features expanded on.

For instance, if there's a new todo/reminder/etc. added is there a notification sent out? There could be a problem if one person uses the app updates it a lot and the other doesn't check it as often.

rdl• 14 years ago

I wonder how many couples are mixed (iOS and android) vs. same-platform.

(I still am amused that I needed to convince my girlfriend to get an iPhone instead of another blackberry, last year)

atte• 14 years ago

It's interesting to think of someone using this for their current bf/gf, breaking up (not sure if there is a button for this yet), and then using it again with their new significant other. It seems like some people might not want to even see the app again after a painful breakup, but I guess it's not so different from Facebook with relationship statuses.

dm8• 14 years ago

Feedback to pair Founders -

- Signup screen is broken. When I'm entering my details (email and password), I don't see the textboxes. Keyboard is covering that. Screen should re-adjust if I'm entering details.

- When I upload the photo, please give user choice to scale and orient that photo. My photo didn't scale to fit by default.

NeutronBoy• 14 years ago

Trying to signup in app, it won't accept my email address. Getting the error 'Email Autocorrection: Did you mean NeutronBoy@null.com?'

AjayTripathy• 14 years ago

Has anyone on an android phone been able to get thumbkissing to work? I have not.

tomkin2• 14 years ago

I actually wanted to like this app for iOS, but from the get go it malfunctioned routinely. I tried to post a video to my wife within the app, which has been queued for 2 weeks. Notifications are delayed by hours and sometimes not sent at all. To nitpick further, the interface is somewhat ugly and the icon isn't easy on the eyes.

Generally speaking, this is probably the worst looking/functioning app out of YC. I was actually surprised to hear it was YCW12.

I know those are jerky things to say, but I felt really let down by the experience. I really do think this idea is relevant but not executed the way that would be conducive to opening an app each time I want to record a moment with my wife.

jammur• 14 years ago

I'm really sorry that's the experience you had. I can't say that the app is perfect -- we've got a decent bug list we're working though -- but I can say that it shouldn't be like that. If you have a couple minutes, shoot me an email at jamie@trypair.com and I'll try my best to get everything working for you.

zootar• 14 years ago

I just installed the iOS app. It's totally locked up on the "are you sure you want to invite without a quick video" dialog. None of the buttons do anything (including "Cancel").

EricDeb• 14 years ago

That's one thing thing you can count on on HN: brutal honesty! BTW I think this is a killer idea, though I am more in the bachelor stage.... maybe we need a social network for guys on the prowl!

tomkin2• 14 years ago

Thanks for hearing me out. I don't want to put your team down because I do know that a lot of sweat was put into the thing. It's not a knock against your team, but more so your strategy in general. When I want to share something with my wife, I am using Pair because she is not immediately accessible in person. And more often she is within 5km. Why is this relevant? Pair is sort of a novelty at this point. I'm hoping Pair is trying to replace my "our family memories" box, which contains everything from the first flower I gave to her, right down to receipts at restaurants. Now back to the 5km relevancy – if it is easier to save our memories in a box than it is in your app, you've failed because I can just go to the memory box or to her.

My advice (grain of salt) is that you point these events and moments inward to Pair – have Facebook, Twitter post to Pair (e.g., "Post messages I leave on my partner's wall to Pair") or Foursquare check-ins (e.g. "You and your partner were at Giant Tiger together on May 9, 2012". I understand that Pair is for 1-to-1, but since there is no community element, it's hard to stay engaged. If Pair was more like my memories box I think it has legs. You could kind of think of it as an Evernote for relationships.

I also think you should really try to have Pair accessible faster. Having other apps post to it is one way (people are happy to have Facebook open, for example). Another way is to make it as fast as possible for a user to be able to post memories.

white_bread• 14 years ago

Honest question: What's the plan with the 4.2M recently raised? That seems like an awful lot for an app. I mean there's no sales force required to sell the product. It's not like it required some kind of data that would take a huge team to aggregate. The apps are built now on both platforms and now there's some debugging to to do but is that really $4.2M worth of work? What that money going to be spent on? Is that 5 years of runway?

I'm happy that they got the funding but I'm just curious as to what the pitch was to justify that investment.

AznHisoka• 14 years ago

What happened to spending quality time offline with your partner? And if they're away, what happened to spending time on your own, without resorting to gimmicks like thumb kissing?

Pair (YC W12), The Social Network For Two, Launches An Android App

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