’Appy ever after!

A smartphone app that caters mainly for bashful Asian lovers, has recorded a million downloads since its launch last November and now the developers are eyeing new markets.

The culture is a little different in Europe and the US, so we will try to cater to long-distance couples or engaged couples getting ready for marriage

Couples unwilling to share their relationship with the world through Facebook or other social media have flocked to sign up for Between, an intimate app designed for two.

“Imagine how stressful it would be if your boss followed you on Twitter, or parents added you on Facebook...

“Between is the new solution for such pressure,” one of the South Korean developers, Park Jae-Uk, said in an interview.

Between, available on iPhones and Android-equipped models, offers privacy for couples who want to swap photos, messages, schedules and short voice messages via smartphone.

Developers say some 4.6 million messages and 350,000 pictures are exchanged daily. Between was named Best Mobile App of the year at a competition for new global ventures in Amsterdam.

“Facebook and Twitter may do a good job in connecting people in all sorts of ways, but we thought maybe some people want a closed and private relationship,” said Mr Park, whose VCNC company runs the app.

“So we turned our eyes to unmarried couples who need such a private relationship platform more than any other groups.”

Between lets them share photo timelines, send messages and mark anniversaries, birthdays and other dates on each other’s calendars.

Connection to the service is completed when both parties enter each other’s phone numbers after registering.

If a couple breaks up, one of them may disconnect the service and all the data will be deleted. “No matter how hard you try to conceal information on other social networking services, it still seems like they are wide open... so we decided to base our appeal on how tightly closed and protected our service is,” said Mr Park.

The application is password-protected and is never available to more than two people at any one time.

Between is available in some 13 languages including Korean, English and Japanese.

At present it mainly targets Asian users because of their culture of keeping loving relationships to themselves.

Some 75 per cent of users are Koreans, seven per cent Chinese and six per cent Japanese.