Is the Iris Dating App Any Good?

It is a sound idea with a claim nobody has proved. Iris uses artificial intelligence to learn which faces you find attractive, then shows you people it predicts will like you back, and you can message only after you both like each other. The better odds the company claims are its own, and it promises no result. Whether it is good for you depends on your photos and on how many members live near you, and you can test both in two weeks.

You start by rating pictures. Each rating teaches the app what you respond to, and you can add a photo of someone you find attractive to give it a sharper example. Your results then sit in three tabs: Your Type, Your Fans and Mutuals.

Your Fans is the one to watch, because it shows people predicted to like you. Mutuals shows people predicted to like each other, which looks best on paper. Your Type is a menu, and a menu is not a yes.

Iris also sells an Iris Flower, a stronger sign of interest. Free members get one each week.

A few reasons come up, and most are not about the idea.

The first is the face. Iris predicts from faces, and yours is one of them. A dark, cropped or years-old photo gives it little to work with, so a man with weak photos can get a thin Your Fans tab and blame the app.

The second is the pool. An app is only useful where enough people use it. In a smaller city a smaller user base can leave you with a short list.

The third is the work. Training it takes honest, varied ratings. Iris itself says liking almost everyone dilutes your type and being too picky starves it. A man who rushed through ten minutes of tapping may get a list that looks wrong to him.

None of these means the app fails. They mean it needs the right man in the right place.

The company's claim of better odds is a claim from the company that sells the product. We know of no independent evidence that it does better than the big apps, and we will not pretend otherwise.

That matters for how you spend your time. A prediction that sounds clever is not a result. A result is a woman who answers, agrees to a plan and turns up.

Iris says every member verifies the profile photo with a selfie and that the minimum age is 18. Those are the app's own rules, and they point the right way. A selfie check tells you a face belongs to someone. It says nothing about her honesty or what she wants.

a dating coach's own check is a short video call before the date. Ten minutes can save you an evening, and women who have already spoken to you almost never flake.

Iris has a free version and paid Gold and Platinum memberships. Free covers one Flower a week, the Your Type screen, and browsing and matching with people on Your Fans. The paid tiers add more Iris Picks, unlimited likes, seeing who likes you and Super Search.

Check prices in the app, since they change. My rule for any paid feature is that it multiplies what you already have. Unlimited likes is a double-edged one, because a man with no limit tends to like everyone, and that lowers the quality of his results.

Fix your photos first, with a clear shot of your face in daylight at the front and a few more from different days. Then use the free version properly for two weeks.

Rate in a balanced way and treat it like choosing a woman to take out on Friday, not clicking for fun. Count four things: how many people appear in Your Fans, how many you would take out, how many conversations started and how many dates you set.

If those numbers beat where you were before, keep it. If Your Fans is nearly empty and your photos are strong, the pool near you is probably thin, and your evenings are better spent on an app that is busy where you live.

A mutual like is a small win, not a date. Write soon, with something about her, and keep it light. coach teaches that about four to seven short texts, each with a purpose, should get a woman from an app to her number and a plan. A man who gets to a call within a few messages learns more in ten minutes than the app can tell him in a month.