A few years ago I had an idea of a TikTok that would feature a conversation on Grindr. To make that happen, I quickly put something together using HTML/CSS and recorded the TikTok, and it looked pretty realistic. Not long after, I thought to myself β why not improve this small PoC and turn it into a tool that others could use too? This is pretty much how Fake Grindr Chat Generator became reality and has been available for use for a few years now.
It would be an exaggeration to say that the design of the Grindr app has changed drastically from the day that I first downloaded it (in the early fall of 2020), but some minor changes did happen from time to time and up until 2022, I tried my best to keep up with those changes in the app. However, last year's changes to the UI of the Grindr app were much more pronounced, and the difference in the designs became so noticeable that you could tell which memes on the internet were screenshot from within the actual app and which ones were recreated in Fake Grindr Chat Generator. (Needless to say β I would much rather not have been on the app for so long that I started noticing even the fine details, but it is what it is π) For that reason, I had it at the back of my mind for a long time to return and refactor the app as soon as I had enough time and motivation.
And now, I'm happy to share that I've released a new version (v0.2.0) of the app which aligns the UI of the app with the latest design of the Grindr app, addresses some of the bugs that I had noticed a long time ago but never had the chance to address, as well as introduces some new features such as the new Fire reaction π₯³
So What's New?
The design of the tool has been aligned with the latest design of the Grindr app: This includes changes to:
The color palette: The distinguishing Grindr orange & blue have slightly changed over the years, together with the background color which is now pitch black as opposed to the previous dark gray.
Typography: Grindr stopped using its signature Dinot type face sometime in the last year, switching to IBM Plex Sans, which despite looking a bit chunkier than Dinot still looks pretty nice (and seems to have better coverage for non-Latin scripts!)
Sizing: Some elements of the design are now more aligned with the Grindr app sizing-wise. This includes cases where some messages would take up much more space than they should, as well as changes in the typographic sizes of textual elements.
Time is now using a locale-aware formatting: When I first created the tool, it never occurred to me that the Grindr app was using locale-aware formatting to display time, so I stuck with the 24-hour time format that we use in Armenia. After a while I recognized this shortcoming but never really had a chance to fix it, so this was one of the first fixes that I made sure to introduce in this new version.
Added support for Fire reactions: Previously, double-tapping a message would delete it from the editor, which freed me of the need to come up with a dedicated button for that purpose (even though I'm not sure what percentage of users actually knew of the existence of such a functionality because I never collected telemetry for that action π). With the introduction of the Fire reaction, which I thought would be a nice addition to the app, I had to repurpose the double-taps to toggle between the liked and not liked states of the given message, and dedicate a whole new button for deleting a message.
Enhanced walk-through experience: Even though I always thought the UI of the app to be pretty intuitive and didn't think I needed to come up with a fancy walk-through screen to show how it works, I did come across some screenshots on the web that had the "EDIT MODE" pattern in the background (which I have now removed from the tool altogether, btw). For that reason, I committed to enhancing the simplistic walk-through screen that the app previously had and turned it into a proper multiple-step walk-through experience that demonstrates the whole set of capabilities that the app has.
I hope you enjoy this new update! If you have any feedback, questions or suggestions, do feel free to reach out to me on Instagram and I'll be happy to help! (I have also fixed the link on the welcome page to point to my Instagram account β for some reason I had put a Twitter link there even though I never had Twitter π).