This app links you to people all over the world

The app features a world map with a cursor that zooms into a random country, and connects you with a local there

Asl? Age, sex, location - Back in an era of ICQ and Omegle, these three words gave you everything you needed to know about a stranger. With apps being built with complex algorithms now, that question is perhaps unnecessary.

Take Ablo, for instance. Launched this year, the app links you to people all over the world, with a single click. We download it on App Store and make our profile. You can add a picture, a brief introduction, your basic details such as birth date and email ID, and you're set. The interface changes to a world map, and a cursor hovers around it and settles on one country. There's also a timestamp and weather details for each country it takes you to. We are taken to Mexico, and matched with someone called Ángel. A live chat window opens up with an option to text or video chat. It also auto-translates messages, so language is no barrier. The accuracy is debatable because it offers a literal translation.

Users can live chat for free, and then, one can choose to send a friend request to add the person you're conversing with to a permanent list. If you forget to do that, you'll need to purchase virtual coins. For instance a sum of 150 coins is required to send a friend request, and 500 coins can be bought for R300. Overall, the app is a great pastime, simply for its interface design. It's so engaging and addictive that the only drawback, we feel, is its instant nature that makes you want to disconnect from the conversation quickly. It leaves little space for meaningful conversations that dating apps can somehow make space for. But if one day, we can't sleep after midnight and want to get out of the social media frenzy - we know we'll be turning to Ablo.

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