Pulse
Concrete pains from app reviews — and how strong they are
- Messaging apps
My second number gets taken away
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 37 reviews, in 14 of 96 apps. - Shopping & ecommerce apps
Marked as delivered, but nothing arrived
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 45 reviews, in 25 of 95 apps. - Shopping & ecommerce apps
Customer reviews on product pages
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 45 reviews, in 11 of 95 apps. - Crypto & investing apps
Average buy price and profit per coin
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 34 reviews, in 20 of 93 apps. - Photo editors
Retouched faces look fake
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 54 reviews, in 28 of 100 apps. - Dating
Nobody ever writes back
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 55 reviews, in 38 of 100 apps. - Language learning
A word-of-the-day widget
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 47 reviews, in 20 of 100 apps. - Stock investing
Portfolio performance chart
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 34 reviews, in 21 of 73 apps. - Faith, Prayer & Bible
The audio Bible sounds robotic
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 43 reviews, in 18 of 88 apps. - Calories and nutrition
A widget with today’s calories
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 34 reviews, in 25 of 95 apps. - Language learning
The version of the language I need
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 44 reviews, in 19 of 100 apps. - Meditation and mindfulness
My streak resets for no reason
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 44 reviews, in 19 of 100 apps. - Meditation and mindfulness
Pick a different narrator voice
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 44 reviews, in 21 of 100 apps. - Photo editors
Photos lose quality when saved
Pain 3 out of 10, mild. 46 reviews, in 31 of 100 apps. - Menus and shopping lists
Save recipes from social media
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 21 reviews, in 8 of 54 apps. - Night sky and astronomy
Add James Webb, the Voyagers and other probes
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 25 reviews, in 6 of 53 apps. - AI Species Identifier (Plant/Bug/Animal)
The bird is gone before I can hit record
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 25 reviews, in 6 of 48 apps. - AI Species Identifier (Plant/Bug/Animal)
Says “spider” or “flower”, not the species
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 25 reviews, in 6 of 48 apps. - AI writing assistants
The AI doesn’t do what I ask
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 30 reviews, in 12 of 91 apps. - Night sky and astronomy
Famous galaxies and nebulae are missing
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 22 reviews, in 10 of 53 apps. - Night sky and astronomy
A sky widget for the home screen
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 22 reviews, in 7 of 53 apps. - Focus and productivity
Don’t block the apps I need
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 25 reviews, in 12 of 75 apps. - AI Species Identifier (Plant/Bug/Animal)
Tell me if it’s poisonous or edible
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 23 reviews, in 10 of 48 apps. - White Noise & Sleep Soundscapes
A sleep timer that turns the sound off
Pain 2 out of 10, mild. 32 reviews, in 11 of 82 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.