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Romantimatic

My pal Greg Knauss has freed his first iOS app into the wild. Romantimatic (App Store) is an app that reminds you to do one simple thing: send your significant other a “I’m thinking of you” note.

We live in a world where it’s easier to communicate with another human being than ever before - a world that also places relentless demands on our time and attention.

Even with the amazing technology we have in our pockets, we can fly through the day without remember-ing to send a simple “I love you” to the most important person in our lives.

Perfect implementation of sweethearting/glancing for the iOS age.

Update: Unsurprisingly, Greg had gotten quite a bit of a negative response to Romantimatic. I love his response.

I knew there would be some have-we-come-to-this tut-tutting. I mean, I’m not that oblivious. You attach software to the expression of romantic love, and some people are going to see it as cynical. We’ve wrapped code around almost everything in our lives, but deeply felt emotion is still supposed to be start-to-finish analog. You don’t put your anniversary on a calendar, because it means you’re a bad person who doesn’t care.

Except it doesn’t. It means you want to remember it. Your calendar is a tool and it helps you do the things you want to do. I see Romantimatic in the same light. If you’re not good at something and want to get better at it, a tool can help. Tools make things faster and easier and more reliable.

See also this guy writing data mining software to find love on OK Cupid.

To Tien Wang, McKinlay’s OkCupid hacking is a funny story to tell. But all the math and coding is merely prologue to their story together. The real hacking in a relationship comes after you meet. “People are much more complicated than their profiles,” she says. “So the way we met was kind of superficial, but everything that happened after is not superficial at all. It’s been cultivated through a lot of work.”

“It’s not like, we matched and therefore we have a great relationship,” McKinlay agrees. “It was just a mechanism to put us in the same room. I was able to use OkCupid to find someone.”