Best dating & romance apps to steam up your New Year!

January 2, 2015

New Year's isn't just for health and fitness resolutions, for improving your body and mind. It's also for improving your heart. We leave increasingly frantic, often isolated lives. Even surrounded by people, we can be alone. Yet as much as technology allows us to work more and interact in-person less, it can also help connect or re-connect in real life. That can mean strengthening your existing relationships or finding new ones, enjoying quick encounters to spark or rekindle romance, or planning ways to renew or discover long term love. No matter who you are or what you're looking for, here are the best iPhone apps to get your heart beating in harmony this New Year!

Meeting: Tinder, Grindr, and Brenda

Whether you're looking for a brief encounter or hoping to strike up something more substantial, you've got to meet new people. Tinder lets you and others anonymously express interest in each other, and if and when a match occurs, lets you make contact and see what happens. Grindr focuses specifically on the gay and male bisexual community, and Brenda on the lesbian and female bisexual community. Whoever and whatever you're looking for, one of them will suit your desires.

Tinder - Free - Download now
Grindr - Free - Download now
Brenda - Free - Download now

Dating: Plenty of Fish

At some point you may not want to meet not just someone, but the one. There's not an app in the 'verse that can guarantee that, of course, but there are some that focus less on the hookup and more on the matchup. You're still playing the odds, but hopefully they get stacked a little more in your favor. Plenty of Fish has over 50 million members and a lot of features to help you meet the right one, in the right place, at the right time. If you've already loved and lost with OkCupid, give a different sea a try.

Free with IAP - Download now

Messaging: Avocado

Communication is vital to intimacy. Not the general banter we engage in every day, and often barely listen to. But the flirting, the sharing of hopes and dreams and secrets and desires — the words and feelings that we would only every share with each other. It's what binds us together, what makes us safe and dependable, and what makes us thrilling and exciting. Avocado is a messaging app designed specifically for couples so you can share text and picture outside Messages and the Camera Roll. So you can share something that exists, privately, only between the two of you.

Free with subscription option - Download now

Dining: Foursquare and OpenTable

Casual or candle-lit, fast or fine, classic or fusion, trendy or timeless, there are all kinds of restaurants for all kinds of occasions. If it's a first encounter, maybe you want a coffee or pastry shop to keep things light and informal. If it's a budding romance, maybe you want someplace that'll help stoke the fires. If it's a getaway from your everyday, maybe you want someplace that'll let you fall in love all over again. For any of that, and more, Foursquare has become the place to go for socially-fueled recommendations. And once you find the perfect place, OpenTable can help make sure you get a reservation. (OpenTable even integrates with Siri, which makes it quick and easy to start the process.)

Free - Foursquare
Free - OpenTable

Getting away: Hotel Tonight

If you live with family or roommates, finding time and space to be alone together can be tough. If you have kids, finding time and space to be alone together can be almost impossible. Yet finding that time and space can be the very thing that takes your relationship to the next level, or reminds you what your relationship was all about. If you have a little extra cash, if you can arrange for the grandparents to watch the kids, Hotel Tonight can help you find a room — an oasis in your own town. Since it focuses on hotels trying to fill vacant rooms, it's perfect for last-minute romantic get aways. And it'll even let you book with ApplePay.