Pulse
Concrete pains from app reviews — and how strong they are
- Calories and nutrition
The foods I eat aren’t in the database
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 147 reviews, in 44 of 95 apps. - Calories and nutrition
AI gets the calories wrong
Pain 5 out of 10, noticeable. 119 reviews, in 32 of 95 apps. - Calories and nutrition
Log portions in grams, spoons or fractions
Pain 5 out of 10, noticeable. 87 reviews, in 37 of 95 apps. - Calories and nutrition
Wrong calories and macros in the database
Pain 5 out of 10, noticeable. 86 reviews, in 40 of 95 apps. - Calories and nutrition
Fiber and vitamins, not just macros
Pain 4 out of 10, noticeable. 70 reviews, in 35 of 95 apps. - Calories and nutrition
Count workouts in my calorie budget
Pain 4 out of 10, noticeable. 64 reviews, in 35 of 95 apps. - Calories and nutrition
Sync with Apple Health and fitness watches
Pain 4 out of 10, noticeable. 58 reviews, in 37 of 95 apps. - Calories and nutrition
Count net carbs, not total carbs
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 51 reviews, in 21 of 95 apps. - Calories and nutrition
Quickly re-log foods I eat often
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 39 reviews, in 26 of 95 apps. - Calories and nutrition
A widget with today’s calories
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 34 reviews, in 25 of 95 apps. - Calories and nutrition
Can’t fix or delete a food I’ve logged
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 30 reviews, in 16 of 95 apps. - Calories and nutrition
Set my own calorie and macro targets
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 29 reviews, in 16 of 95 apps. - Calories and nutrition
Food tracking on Apple Watch
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 28 reviews, in 17 of 95 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.