There’s a fairly new dating app on the scene, known as Bumble, that tries to avoid the cliche of a male-controlled dating scene by giving the female party control in heterosexual encounters. A staff consisting of almost no men, including Tinder co-founder Whitney Wolf, has created an app that hopes to alleviate the issues of creepers and overly persistent admirers that typical dating app users are likely all too familiar with. With Tinder’s other co-founder Chris Gulczynski taking control of the design, it’s no surprise that Bumble works in a fairly similar fashion. When two parties mutually right-swipe each other, they’ll forge a 24 hour connection that allows either one to send a message. A successful connection becomes a venue for interested parties to reach one another, while connections that are left to fizzle for 24 hours are pruned from users’ lists.
The kicker with Bumble is that if the female party in a heterosexual duo of right-swipers loses interest, she can let the connection fizzle no matter how many attempts to kindle it that the male side may make. In friendship searches or same-sex hookups, either party can light the connection up within 24 hours. If, for whatever reason, cold feet come into play, one connection per user per day can be extended an extra 24 hours. This could prove useful for more than cold feet, of course – life does happen and some people have extremely busy schedules with little time for dating, even if they want to take a whack at it.
It remains to be seen whether Bumble can really solve a good amount of the problems that dating apps typically have, statistically caused most often by guys. Relying on a stereotype to offer a real solution is an arguable tactic, but it’s working fairly well if the 1,680 ratings on the Apple App Store, leaving Bumble with a 4 star rating for the current version, are any indication. On top of finally coming to Android after a good while of iOS exclusivity, the app is also rolling out in Australia, Brazil, France and Spain later this month. While there’s been no word on other countries quite yet, if the app meets with further success, a wider spread is fairly likely.
