Pulse
Concrete pains from app reviews — and how strong they are
- Guitar: tuner and learning
The tuner made me snap a string
Pain 7 out of 10, strong. 196 reviews, in 28 of 61 apps. - Guitar: tuner and learning
The tuner shows the wrong note
Pain 5 out of 10, noticeable. 82 reviews, in 20 of 61 apps. - Guitar: tuner and learning
More songs by artists I love
Pain 5 out of 10, noticeable. 70 reviews, in 16 of 61 apps. - Guitar: tuner and learning
Lessons don’t hear what I play
Pain 5 out of 10, noticeable. 67 reviews, in 15 of 61 apps. - Guitar: tuner and learning
Any tuning, not just standard
Pain 4 out of 10, noticeable. 42 reviews, in 16 of 61 apps. - Guitar: tuner and learning
Add 7- and 8-string guitars
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 37 reviews, in 15 of 61 apps. - Guitar: tuner and learning
Songs vanish while I’m learning them
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 22 reviews, in 7 of 61 apps. - Guitar: tuner and learning
The app shows the wrong chords
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 22 reviews, in 9 of 61 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.