Skout app review

Skout

Price: Free

Skout by Skout, Inc. is a social networking app that you can use to meet new people.

Basically, this is a location-aware app that allows you to find people who are nearby, who are likewise interested in mingling or chatting.

The user interface is well-designed, with a dual-pane layout. It’s easy to flip to check out the local people, look at your direct messages, and follow up on notifications.

The main page shows you a grid of photos and shows you online status and the first name of each person. If you’d prefer, you can also view it in list format. When you tap on a person’s photo, you’ll be taken to a profile with more detail like photo album, latest status update, how close they are to your location, and more. This is the page where you can send a chat request, wink, or add the person to your favorites.

Pretty much all you see about each person is their height, age, ethnicity, and a small blurb in the About Me field. Right now you can’t search based on body type or interests, which kind of limits your ability to find people with similar interests. You can search by age, ethnicity, gender, or proximity, though, so that helps a bit.

Skout was updated to Version 3.3.0 on December 20, 2012. The app is available in several languages and this version has 4488 customer ratings with an average of 4.5 out of five stars.

I like that the app uses proximity features to find people nearby but dislike that you can’t search based on similar interests; this really limits the usability of the app for me. Maybe in future updates the developer will consider offering this feature.

For: iPhone, iPod touch, iPad with iOS 4.3 or later