TL;DR: We’ve made updates to the app to make it the best experience possible for you, including an updated photo cropper, doubling the search distance, adding a new online status, simplifying the About Me prompts, requiring verification for all members, adding a Google sign-in option, and updating the birthday selector on Android.
We’re always trying to make Mutual the best possible experience for you. From interviews and surveys to comments on our feedback site, we’ve heard you and made a lot of updates that are a direct result of the great feedback we’ve received.
(Have a suggestion for Mutual? Share your feedback here!)
So what’s new? We’ll give you a full walkthrough of our most recent updates so you can make the most of all that Mutual has to offer you.
Frame Your Best Self – Updated Photo Cropper
One of the biggest complaints we have had over the years is that our photo cropper zoomed people’s pictures in way too much. We’re happy to say that the new photo cropper makes it much easier to use on any photo you want! (As long as they follow the Community Guidelines, of course.)
A bit of background for this change: compared to many other dating apps, Mutual is one of the only ones that utilizes full-screen photos. Most others opt for square or short rectangle images, all of which look the same on small or large phones. With Mutual being fullscreen, we needed to make sure that a photo cropped on a small iPhone SE screen looked just as good on a new iPhone 14 Pro Max and vice versa.
The updated photo cropper allows you to zoom out photos beyond the bounds of the image, allowing you to perfectly crop your photo how you want. Zooming them out now puts a blurred version of the image in the background, keeping up the appearance of fullscreen photos while allowing you the freedom to use the photos you want.
Search Far And Wide – Max Search Distance Doubled
As we looked into the statistics of where our community is located, we found that many (especially those outside of Utah, Idaho, or Arizona) would benefit from being able to search a wider range.
You can now set their distance to find people up to 1000 miles (1600km) away – this is DOUBLE the previous max distance!
We have also adjusted the minimum range to 10 miles as smaller amounts tended to result in very few profiles.
“I Never Get On Here” Fact or Cap? – New Online Status
Have you ever been swiping and wondered, “How long ago was this person last online?” Or have you been messaging one of your matches and had them tell you, “I never get on here. Add me on (insert whatever social media here) instead,” but you’re not sure if they’re telling the truth? Knowing whether someone is currently online, or has been recently, is essential info that can significantly impact your decision-making process. That information is now visible on someone’s profile!
If someone hasn’t used the app in over two months, their profile will be marked inactive and won’t appear on the main swiping queue. If you don’t want other people to be able to see if you’ve been online recently, you have the option to turn that off, but be aware that turning off that feature on your profile will mean you can’t see others’ online status either.
All New About You – Simplified Prompts
A year and a half ago, we added a feature that allowed you to add up to three prompts to your profiles. These prompts were questions chosen from a list, and you could upload a photo and write a short comment as an answer to each prompt.
We noticed that our prompts needed to be clearer and easier to use. We’ve completely overhauled the process and redesigned our prompts to be easier to fill out! This should reduce the time you spend creating your profile so you can get to finding your person sooner.
Bye Bye Scammers – Required Verification
Mutual takes safety very seriously! We’ve been adding powerful anti-scammer tools to our app all year. However, we found that one of the simplest and most effective tools to protect our community against scammers is one we already had – profile verification! We decided to make profile verification required for ALL accounts joining Mutual.
We redesigned the verification process to be as simple as possible, and it can be done in less than 10 seconds, another way to get you to swiping and finding your perfect match sooner.
A good defense always has multiple lines. If a scammer does manage to weasel their way into the app (by using their own face, for instance), please report them!
Facebook Frustrations – New Google Sign-In
When Mutual launched, everybody was using Facebook, and you could use it to log into everything! As we grew, we added the phone login and Apple login.
Unfortunately, things with Facebook have gotten a bit dicey in recent years, and we’ve had numerous issues with Facebook outages that have prevented our members from logging in. We decided to remove Facebook sign-in.
This change created login issues for lots of people with accounts connected to Facebook. We appreciate everyone’s patience with us as we helped them move their accounts. We are happy to announce that we now offer Google sign-in! Even better, you should be able to log in with the email you had connected to Facebook and automatically use your original account.
If you need any help with your account or being able to sign in, please contact support@mutual.app, and they will be able to assist you in getting your account set up on the method you wish to use.
Easier On Android – Updated Birthday Selector
As we looked at where people spent the most time during onboarding, we noticed Android devices spent a lot of time selecting their birthday.
Digging into it more, we found that we had been using the default calendar date picker. While this particular date picker is good for selecting dates within a month or two of the current date (such as setting reminders or meetings), it is a very poor experience when trying to go back 25+ years to choose your birth date.
With that in mind, we changed that to a much more easy-to-use scrolling date picker.
What’s your favorite of our new updates? What else would you like to see? We’re always looking for ways to improve, so if you have an idea, leave it here!
Hunter Paramore
Hunter has been with Mutual since it was first created back in 2015. He is one of Mutual’s founders, and worked nights and weekends on this until 2021, where he was able to transition to be Mutual’s Full-Time Director of UI/UX Design. He currently is responsible for all of the interface design, product branding, and user research.
Hunter attended college at BYU-Idaho, where he graduated with a BFA in Graphic Design, with a focus on interface design. Since then, he has experience working both at smaller, more agile agencies, as well as major international corporations designing interfaces, testing products, developing branding and marketing materials, and designing web and native apps.
Hunter lives in Lehi, Utah with his wife and three boys, and enjoys listening to power metal, playing drums, airsoft, playing video games, and doing things with his family.
