Pulse
Concrete pains from app reviews — and how strong they are
- AI Companion & Roleplay Chat
My companion won’t send photos when I ask
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 23 reviews, in 11 of 43 apps. - AI Homework & Math Solver
Can’t do word problems
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 29 reviews, in 12 of 51 apps. - Plant care
Can't identify or diagnose a lawn
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 32 reviews, in 12 of 64 apps. - Wardrobe & outfits
More colors when adding clothes
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 22 reviews, in 8 of 46 apps. - Cycling
Can't switch between miles and kilometers
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 26 reviews, in 12 of 56 apps. - AI Companion & Roleplay Chat
Customize my companion’s appearance
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 22 reviews, in 7 of 43 apps. - Tarot & Oracle Card Reading
Same question, different answers
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 21 reviews, in 9 of 40 apps. - Tarot & Oracle Card Reading
Nothing but negative cards
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 21 reviews, in 10 of 40 apps. - Password managers
Autofill only works half the time
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 48 reviews, in 15 of 95 apps. - Fishing
The map shows the wrong depths
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 24 reviews, in 10 of 41 apps. - Teleprompter and captions
Captions in my language
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 21 reviews, in 9 of 41 apps. - AI Companion & Roleplay Chat
Videos and video calls with my companion
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 21 reviews, in 15 of 43 apps. - AI writing assistants
More text formatting tools
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 45 reviews, in 9 of 91 apps. - Wallpapers & widgets
Transparent widget backgrounds don’t work
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 49 reviews, in 10 of 79 apps. - Recording and transcribing speech
Transcription can't handle my language
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 26 reviews, in 7 of 30 apps. - AI Homework & Math Solver
Show the steps, not just the answer
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 26 reviews, in 11 of 51 apps. - Guitar: tuner and learning
Add 7- and 8-string guitars
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 37 reviews, in 15 of 61 apps. - Yoga
Turn the music off or play my own
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 40 reviews, in 16 of 66 apps. - AI Species Identifier (Plant/Bug/Animal)
Can’t handle lawns or tell grass types apart
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 35 reviews, in 11 of 48 apps. - Night sky and astronomy
Pluto, Uranus and asteroids are missing
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 32 reviews, in 12 of 53 apps. - Intermittent fasting
Food log with calorie counting
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 27 reviews, in 15 of 53 apps. - AI Homework & Math Solver
No solutions for my textbook
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 25 reviews, in 4 of 51 apps. - Blood pressure
Can’t print or send your readings
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 25 reviews, in 13 of 54 apps. - Pregnancy
A baby with my skin tone
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 26 reviews, in 9 of 46 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.