
Pair (YC W12), The Social Network For Two, Launches An Android App - jammur
http://mashable.com/2012/05/08/pair-android/
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tomkin
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
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.

~~~
tomkin
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.

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thechut
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...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tenthbit.juliet)

~~~
rogerbinns
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
> after using apktool on their apk file

Check out Sony Ericsson's recently released ApkAnalyser

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

~~~
thechut
Both of these are great tools I didn't know about. Thank you!

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fraserharris
"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?

~~~
blake8086
How do they know this in a way that is respecting the privacy of their users?

~~~
lysol
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.

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rhizome
FYI: different than the hosting company.

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atte
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.

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

~~~
sukuriant
Buzz words for marketing

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

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white_bread
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.

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cluutran
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.

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EREFUNDO
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!

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lexalizer
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.

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dm8
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.

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AznHisoka
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?

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rdl
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)

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CosmicShadow
Great to see more growth coming out of Waterloo startups!

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

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

