With an average American spending 90 minutes of his day on finding a match, it’s only natural that dating apps are one of the most downloaded apps on both Apple and Android phones. Even though apps like Tinder, Badoo, and Happn have ruled the mobile dating segment so far, the mobile dating community seems to be hungry for more.
Our Mobile app development company has been consistently contributing on both Android and Apple app store as a dedicated mobile app development team for countless clients. In this current post, we will share our experience with IOS dating app development, featuring live chat, voice and video calls powered by Twilio WebRTC.
- The top features of the dating app
- Our approach for IOS dating app development
- The challenges we faced during development
I. Tinder Like Matchmaking
The heart of the app that matches two users was built upon the same concept to that of Tinder’s iconic swipe. The users see recommendations in the form of cards which they can swipe right to approve and left to disapprove.
We also facilitated in-app purchases where users can make a one-time payment and get matched to any user they want. This was in contrast to Tinder’s subscription functionality where users have to purchase different level of subscriptions to gain different features for a better chance of getting matched.
Our iOS app development company formulated two distinct algorithms that run behind the scenes which contribute towards matching the profiles of two users.
- a) To compile a list of best matches for a user.
- b) To initiate a discussion when a user likes each other’s profile.
While the second algorithm is quite straightforward, i.e. enable communication options when both users like each other’s profile, the first algorithm works depending upon the dating preferences of a profile.
The application requests the users to define their dating preferences which include standard variables such as Interests, gender, likes, dislikes, proximity etc. https://datingranking.net/de/weise-dating-sites/ The algorithm compiles the user preference data and matches it with other profiles in order to prepare the profile stack for each user. Each user’s profile preferences are programmatically matched with all the profiles in the database and a curated list of most viable matches is produced in the form of a stack of cards.
II. Live Chat Between Matched Users
As soon as a user finds a match, both matched couples are given access to each other’s profile information along with options to communicate.
The live chat functionality allows users to communicate with each other using real-time one to one messaging. Users are able to share messages, fix a date, and send virtual gifts.
Our Approach
The live chat functionality was built using where a WebSocket server was set up to enable real-time communication. We utilized WebSockets to enable full duplex communication between chat participants. We were also able to determine whether the users are online or offline, they are typing a message or not and were able to share messages without any server latency.
also provided us a caching mechanism to save the messages sent by a user in case the recipient is offline. The cache will hold the messages and delivers it as soon as the recipient comes back online and is connected to his end of the socket connection.
III. Audio and Video Calling
The chat interface also includes options of audio and video calling between two users. In case the call recipient is not active on the app, the call notifications for incoming audio and video calls were served as default iPhone notifications.