Pulse
Concrete pains from app reviews — and how strong they are
- Dating
Full of fake profiles and bots
Pain 10 out of 10, acute. 3,827 reviews, in 92 of 100 apps. - AI Homework & Math Solver
Gives wrong answers to problems
Pain 10 out of 10, acute. 787 reviews, in 44 of 51 apps. - Plant care
Misidentifies plants from photos
Pain 9 out of 10, acute. 561 reviews, in 42 of 64 apps. - Blood pressure
The app doesn’t measure blood pressure
Pain 9 out of 10, acute. 444 reviews, in 41 of 54 apps. - Crypto & investing apps
Can’t withdraw my money
Pain 9 out of 10, acute. 651 reviews, in 69 of 93 apps. - AI photo
The photos look nothing like me
Pain 9 out of 10, acute. 662 reviews, in 67 of 100 apps. - Dating
Shows people hundreds of miles away
Pain 9 out of 10, acute. 715 reviews, in 71 of 100 apps. - Blood pressure
The app doesn’t measure blood sugar
Pain 8 out of 10, strong. 382 reviews, in 26 of 54 apps. - Wallpapers & widgets
Live wallpapers don’t move once set
Pain 8 out of 10, strong. 457 reviews, in 38 of 79 apps. - Resume builders
Can't download or send the finished resume
Pain 8 out of 10, strong. 82 reviews, in 17 of 26 apps. - AI Photo Restore & Unblur
Faces end up looking like someone else
Pain 8 out of 10, strong. 133 reviews, in 19 of 28 apps. - AI Photo Restore & Unblur
Enhancing barely changes the photo
Pain 8 out of 10, strong. 133 reviews, in 20 of 28 apps. - AI Companion & Roleplay Chat
My companion forgets what we talked about
Pain 8 out of 10, strong. 165 reviews, in 26 of 43 apps. - AI image generation
The portrait doesn't look like me
Pain 8 out of 10, strong. 384 reviews, in 51 of 99 apps. - Messaging apps
Messages don’t go through
Pain 8 out of 10, strong. 439 reviews, in 50 of 96 apps. - Translators
My language isn't on the list
Pain 8 out of 10, strong. 202 reviews, in 26 of 38 apps. - AI Companion & Roleplay Chat
The bot keeps repeating the same lines
Pain 8 out of 10, strong. 138 reviews, in 30 of 43 apps. - Water & hydration
Log water from Apple Watch
Pain 8 out of 10, strong. 84 reviews, in 24 of 33 apps. - AI assistants
The bot forgets what we talked about
Pain 8 out of 10, strong. 285 reviews, in 41 of 58 apps. - Night sky and astronomy
The sky on screen doesn't match the real one
Pain 8 out of 10, strong. 191 reviews, in 28 of 53 apps. - AI Species Identifier (Plant/Bug/Animal)
Gets even common species wrong
Pain 8 out of 10, strong. 192 reviews, in 36 of 48 apps. - AI photo
It turns people of color white
Pain 8 out of 10, strong. 402 reviews, in 62 of 100 apps. - Food delivery apps
Items missing from my order
Pain 8 out of 10, strong. 302 reviews, in 64 of 94 apps. - Food delivery apps
Ordered, but the food never came
Pain 8 out of 10, strong. 268 reviews, in 63 of 94 apps.
How we count
The sample is up to 500 recent App Store reviews for each of about 100 popular apps per category. We look for each need across all of the category’s reviews and check a random sample of matches by hand: at least 80% are correct.
“Pain” is a rough score from 1 to 10: half comes from the share of the category’s reviews that mention it, 30% from how many such reviews there are in total, 20% from the share of apps where it comes up. It is not search demand and not market size.
In words: 1–3 mild · 4–6 noticeable · 7–8 strong · 9–10 acute.