Pair (YC W12) is a Path for the Two of Us
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
"A feature called 'thumbkissing' shows your partners thumbprints whenever they’re touching the screen, and both phones will vibrate if your thumbs are on the same place."
This is clearly the best YC startup ever. Hurry up on the Android app for those of us in mixed relationships!
I'm curious: are you in a relationship? That's not meant to be a jab; I just think that there's a pretty big gap in "getting" this idea between those in relationships and those who aren't.
- Text her a random emoji
- Email her an image I've found (usually using our app Prism http://www.steamclocksw.com/prism/)
- Send her a Draw Something drawing
The point is to send a "unit of thinking about you" that's simple but unique enough that it's not mechanical (like a "poke" would be). Pair seems like it could bring this little habit to more relationships, or at least displace text and email for those who do this.
I'm only half joking
Scheduled spontaneity.
The solution to working too much to be in touch with the partner you really care about is not an app, it's telling your boss to shove the job up his ass. That said, I doubt there will be any shortage of suckers who prefer to spend time at the office than with their partner.
Besides, I don't think this is /exclusively/ for long distance relationships. I'm sure there are some couples not in a long distance situation that would enjoy this.
This app, or one like it, will be huge.
Agreed, but then there are those of us who formed solid, committed relationships before we had to or have to move and want to keep them alive. Even being on the other side of the same state from your fiancee is painful, man!
When my wife and I first met and started dating online (in 1998, before it was common) we worried that her grandparents wouldn't approve. It turns out, grandma and grandpa thought it was a cute reminder of their own youth; they had courted through letters. "Old school" indeed...
Sometimes, despite all your plans and desires, you fall in love with someone who circumstances don't permit you to spend as much time with as you'd like. Maybe you're finishing college, deployed to a combat zone, or tending to an ailing/dying relative. Or maybe you're just busy because you're either caring for your 4 kids, or making sure they have food on the plate.
Life is like that, and has been since long before you were born. Making it easier to connect to your loved ones is a good thing.
Yep.
There are times when short term sacrifices are needed. Technology helps make that sacrifice a little easier.
Someone should compile a list of initial ideas vs pivots. It would be interesting to see how many groups had pivots this drastic.
Ben the Bodyguard[1] meets SMS/MMS for relationships.
Maybe we'll see fewer celebrity photos leak after this[2].
[1]: http://benthebodyguard.com
[2]: This is a good thing.
I would rather record a small video (rather than video chat), write an actual email (rather than IM back and forth), draw a silly picture (than send smiley faces back and forth). If you could change it from feeling like a status report to a message in a bottle, it really does change the dynamics of a long distance relationship.
Funny enough I recently stopped dating someone because of the distance factor. Maybe Pair could have solved that "problem".
But my cofounder Sri and I downloaded it and started playing together. Few minutes in we were giggling like children and I now see the value in Pair.
It's perfect for those serious couples with useful features like task lists, built-in Facetime, ability to show "where you are" etc.
Good job!
On a more serious note, the shared todo list is great! No doubt a lot of other apps have this but with chat, photo sharing, Facetime, and thumbkisses, this makes Pair an awesome app. I would've easily bought this for $2-4/user.
(1) Food in the pantry - what do we have and what's finished (2) Bill paying (link into a service like WePay) (3) Major/large household purchases (4) Group chat for the household (allow linking of chat to the todo-lists and vice versa)
Bonus points if the app allows you to "connect" to neighbors you know well to know what things you are willing to share with one another like tools.
I'm not sure how well an app would work outside dense urban areas, but in any place where unrelated people live with one another and coordinate with one another, such an app would be useful.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kr.co.vcnc.and...
I wonder how they're going to handle migration between relationships.
- first up, you need to give users assurance that they own the data. Allow them to export data anytime and that too in a beautiful way. I would hate to loose such memoirs shared with my loved one, just because you failed to raise another round of funding. (Data persistency can well be the primary reason, why people still uses emails; It will always be there.)
- how about a personlize gifts on their anniversaries from the service ? you have good amount of data to personalize the gifts. seriously, surprize me here!
- I have been using tumblr for last year on same usecase. following stats will help you: march - we get separated by distance. april - 111 posts, may - 74 posts, june - 39 posts, july - 36 posts, august - 11 posts, september - 33 posts, october - 60 posts, november - 23 posts, december - 1 post.
Post distribution: [70% pictures - 10% links - 15% text - 10% videos/music].
where pictures, are of one other, old memories, places we visit, things we spot. where links, are interesting find of the day. where text, are short letters, quotes. but no chatters.
- Now, I would need an information overview of my content pretty much like tumblr or more, with posting abilities of Path or more.
- Tumblr isn't built for game dynamics here. She is posting 80% of content and i 'heart' 50% of her content as a feedback to her. A game dynamics which involves more participation from not-so active member of relationship? we are NOT talking about games or chatters(messaging or whatsapp), but subtle or even funny push notifications if she has posted and i have not yet viewed to begin with.
- an instapaper functionality, so that we can share things from anywhere on Internet, by just sending an email to the account.
- avoid becoming a messaging app, for love sake ;)
all the best!
One interesting aspect to this service is because it only allows you to actively pair with one person at a time, it doesn't support people with multiple partners (those in the beginning stages of dating, the polyamorous, and cheaters).
If this app became popular enough, I could see a partner requiring the use of this app to make infidelity more awkward, although it could still be worked around by having multiple phones with an app on each one.
Or with multiple loved ones who don't qualify as "partners".
Like, for example, a deployed soldier who wants to keep in touch with his wife and his kid. Being able to "pair" with each one might be really nice.
(I'm actually being serious here. I could see this working, but probably not in the US where the concept of the nuclear family is much weaker. In Latin America or some European markets this could work quite well. There's probably an Asian equivalent to Path for extended families as well)
I never managed to get my wife to regularly check our shared Google calendar, too much apps to check for her. A simple app which handles all the couple tasks in one place is a great solution.
Notably There != Their.
Except for actually staying in touch, unfortunately :-)
So yeah, that's useful. I mean I'm sure girls consider pressing a button a very romantic gesture. Must be also very enjoyable for the guys.
Somebody please make TechCrunch with articles about innovative projects.