The Greatest App of All Time Day 11: Flashlight vs. Tinder

Welcome back to Gizmodo’s March Madness bracket challenge to name the greatest app of all time! Yesterday’s lineup was another nail-biter but with more than 53 percent of the vote, Duolingo threw Skype out on its culo. Today, the mighty flashlight takes on the only dating app in our lineup.

If you’re just tuning in, you can read all about our selection criteria for this historic contest right here. Check out the full bracket of contestants embedded below. And as always, if you think we missed your personal favorite app of all time, yell at us in the comments. Now, let’s get into today’s contestants.

This Giant Company Owns Almost Every Dating App

For many, the flashlight app is no app at all. It’s a built-in utility on most smartphones these days. But that wasn’t always the case. In 2010, a full two years after the App Store launched, Apple finally allowed apps to use the camera flash on the iPhone 4 as a continuous flashlight. Many, many developers jumped in on the immediate gold rush.

By 2013, there were more than a thousand flashlight apps in the App Store, and then the good times came crashing down when Apple added its native flashlight function. Whoever was still making money in the crowded field was out of business and more than a few physical flashlight manufacturers probably felt the pain as well.

The flashlight app does one thing, and the thing it does is useful. That’s something that countless apps cannot claim.

Our second contestant is sort of a stand-in for all the dating apps. As early as the mid-1990s, people started meeting romantic partners online but it was largely considered an embarrassing practice. With the boom of social networking and online life in the ‘00s, people started getting more comfortable with online dating and sites like OkCupid encouraged users to take endless surveys while writing lengthy essays about themselves and their preferences. In 2012, Tinder’s killer idea was to go back to the superficial ways people used to size up romantic partners in real life. By showing users a photo and allowing them to swipe left or right to reject or like a potential match, Tinder took dating to the mobile world and accepted that looks are the primary motivation for setting up a first date. It was crass and efficient and Tinder is still enjoying a healthy lead against its competitors.

So, reader, what’ll it be? Will Flashlight win your heart, or did Tinder help you find the light of your life?