Pulse
Concrete pains from app reviews — and how strong they are
- Interior design and floor plans
The AI gives me a whole different room
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 120 reviews, in 24 of 61 apps. - Menus and shopping lists
Can’t share the list with my family
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 82 reviews, in 22 of 54 apps. - Baby tracking apps
Apple Watch app
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 112 reviews, in 30 of 61 apps. - AI Homework & Math Solver
Can’t read the problem from a photo
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 79 reviews, in 21 of 51 apps. - Recording and transcribing speech
Can't record a call with one tap
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 78 reviews, in 11 of 30 apps. - Translators
Won't translate offline
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 86 reviews, in 24 of 38 apps. - Step counter
Steps from my watch, not just my phone
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 133 reviews, in 33 of 66 apps. - AI Photo Restore & Unblur
Faces come out looking cartoonish
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 46 reviews, in 14 of 28 apps. - Wallpapers & widgets
Search wallpapers and themes by keyword
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 139 reviews, in 46 of 79 apps. - AI Species Identifier (Plant/Bug/Animal)
Same thing, different answer every time
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 99 reviews, in 32 of 48 apps. - Yoga
Cast the class to my TV
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 112 reviews, in 33 of 66 apps. - Weather
The temperature is several degrees off
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 139 reviews, in 36 of 92 apps. - AI image generation
The AI ignores what I ask for
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 134 reviews, in 44 of 99 apps. - Ride-hailing apps
The driver never shows up
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 112 reviews, in 39 of 90 apps. - Sleep trackers and alarms
The alarm doesn’t go off and I oversleep
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 174 reviews, in 32 of 94 apps. - Recording and transcribing speech
Transcripts are full of errors
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 68 reviews, in 13 of 30 apps. - Pregnancy
Support for twin pregnancies
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 71 reviews, in 19 of 46 apps. - Blood pressure
Heart rate readings are way off
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 68 reviews, in 24 of 54 apps. - 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. - Ride-hailing apps
Cancellation fee when the driver's at fault
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 100 reviews, in 32 of 90 apps. - Password managers
Can't unlock with Face ID or fingerprint
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 108 reviews, in 41 of 95 apps. - Running
Distance tracking is off
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 89 reviews, in 29 of 50 apps. - AI assistants
The bot keeps repeating itself
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 114 reviews, in 33 of 58 apps. - Weather
Bombarded with pointless alerts
Pain 6 out of 10, noticeable. 115 reviews, in 40 of 92 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.