Black screens, closeups of torsos and pointless landscape photos—these are a few of our least favorite things when it comes to dating and hookup apps.
Scruff allows users to have verified profile photos for added safety, while Grindr offers nothing to keep the fakes and chatbots at bay. But Archer, a new gay dating/hookup app created by gay men aims to cut out some of the nonsense.
The end goal of signing up for Archer depends on the user himself but runs that gamut from quickie sexual encounters to long-term monogamous relationships.
What differentiates Archer from the rest is the signup process itself: All users must post a face pic and have their identity verified via a video scanning system. We’re sure some people can figure out a way to trick the system, but this is by far the best attempt at making the browsing experience exceptional.
Finally, at long last, your grid of potential Mr. Rights will be nothing but (mostly) smiling faces with not a single black square or random meme as a main profile pic in sight. And age also must be displayed, something the other apps don’t require.
As a newer app, however, early adoption comes with its limitations. We downloaded the app and while there are some really great guys in the Dallas-Fort Worth area already signed up, it’s nowhere near the volume of the bigger dating/hookup apps.
Despite a beautiful, sleek layout, the information you convey on your profile is rather limited—only 140 characters. This keeps guys from getting overly verbose (an equally bad trait in most cases), but a 140-character limit doesn’t give us the chance to divulge more than the most superficial details of our intricately charming personalities.
Of course, that’s where actual conversation comes into play, so it’s not necessarily a totally terrible thing.
Archer also doesn’t give you many search options to narrow down choices, such as sorting by who’s currently online or by specific tags, ranging from “Dogdad” to “Daddy.”
Because it’s relatively new, we anticipate the number of features to grow and become more robust as more users sign up. So it’s still worth adding to your smartphone while waiting for people to discover it.
We truly love the face-first approach and verification process, so it has a ton of potential.
Because if we show up to Starbucks one more time for a coffee date and a Russian bot shows up, we’re just gonna pledge a life of celibacy right now.
Archer
App photos courtesy of Archer
Free download
archerapp.com
