Pulse
Concrete pains from app reviews — and how strong they are
- Messaging apps
Messages don’t go through
Pain 8 out of 10, strong. 439 reviews, in 50 of 96 apps. - Messaging apps
Bots and fakes instead of real people
Pain 7 out of 10, strong. 323 reviews, in 30 of 96 apps. - Messaging apps
Calls drop and we can’t hear each other
Pain 5 out of 10, noticeable. 95 reviews, in 28 of 96 apps. - Messaging apps
Photos and videos won’t send
Pain 5 out of 10, noticeable. 91 reviews, in 37 of 96 apps. - Messaging apps
No alerts for new messages
Pain 4 out of 10, noticeable. 68 reviews, in 33 of 96 apps. - Messaging apps
My second number gets taken away
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 37 reviews, in 14 of 96 apps. - Messaging apps
An AI bot I can’t get rid of
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 33 reviews, in 8 of 96 apps. - Messaging apps
Incoming calls don’t ring through
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 32 reviews, in 18 of 96 apps. - Messaging apps
Schedule messages to send later
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 29 reviews, in 11 of 96 apps. - Messaging apps
Spam calls flood my second number
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 27 reviews, in 13 of 96 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.