Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 247 posts

Re: Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?

#141

Post by stratocumulus0 »

winternett wrote: post #105
eagerpace wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To collect data so they can do marketing and advertising to customers.

The extra code might there to determine your spending habits across other apps and your bank balance and then to determine where you're located so that it can provide information on regional affluence so they can price toothpaste & brushes higher in strategic regions... That's just an example guess, but the bloat is there for a purpose... I'm pretty sure the app gets updated on intervals too, just like so many others…

Or maybe it's because every other company has an app, just like every company had a hotline at some point. Even if few people will use it, you have to have all the communication channels covered.

Re: Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?

#142

Post by [deleted] »

pixl97 wrote: post #133

While I can't say anything about these apps, I do work close to a bunch of companies that make and distribute software, and there is a general rule I see. The crappier the companies software security is, the larger their apps are. One of the large companies I work with takes software security seriously and has internal employees that make most of the software, and internal security teams that audit it. Outside of hav…

[deleted]

Re: Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?

#143

Post by SushiHippie »

daemonologist wrote: post #14
khrbrt wrote: post #2

Unrolled: https://unrollnow.com/status/1828490449881047401

Seems to have been HN'ed to death: > Connection failed: User 'uxxxxxxx_unroll' has exceeded the 'max_connections_per_hour' resource (current value: 500) (Is that a MySQL error?)

> (Is that a MySQL error?)

Seems like it, but why would a website have such a (low) limit for mysql connections.

Re: Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?

#144

Post by sukispeeler »

What drives me nuts is that gathering user data for data brokers is such a valuable operation. I am sorry, but I can't sit here and be excited about who numbers are going up at conglomerates as they continue to make apps to extract data rather than any sort of good product. I know I have officially passed middle age due to my good old day's rant, but fridges, dishwashers, and toothbrushes with apps... like when the dishwasher loads itself. I'll accept the hedonistic inflation adjustments.

Re: Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?

#145

Post by kelnos »

tqi wrote: post #104
supercoffee wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised that health insurance companies haven't started offering "good brusher" discounts the way car insurance companies offer a "good driver" discount when you use their car data logging device/app.

Dental insurance isn't really insurance, in the usual sense[1]. [1] https://www.vox.com/23901293/dentist-delta-dental-insurance-...

Most regular medical insurance isn't really insurance, in the usual sense. "Classical" insurance only pays out when something goes wrong, in defined amounts based on what's gone wrong. And while certainly insurers like to find ways not to pay out when you report a claim, there are usually far fewer gotchas with things like auto insurance, home insurance, event insurance, etc., than there is for medical insurance, where you could be denied coverage just because the "wrong" ambulance company took you to the hospital. Not to mention that anything that pays for preventative doctor/dentist/etc. visits isn't really "insurance".

But it's fine; we call it insurance anyway, and everyone knows what it means, so there's no problem.

Re: Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?

#146

Post by onion2k »

kelnos wrote: post #134
pif wrote: post #11

My question is: why do an Oral-B app and a Colgate app even exist?

Didn't read as I'm on a no-Twitter diet, so I'm not sure exactly which app they're referring to, but my Oral-B toothbrush has an app that tracks brushing habits over Bluetooth. I decided when I bought it that I would never ever ever install that app or make use of these features (it's tooth-brushing , for crying out loud), and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I'm sure the company just wants to collect d…

Aren't you buying a toothbrush with a bunch of features you'll never use though? Why not just buy a less fully-featured privacy respecting toothbrush?

(Something is up with the world when you're thinking about toothbrushes that respect your privacy. It's like something out of a Douglas Adams book.)

Re: Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?

#147

Post by Bluestein »

wholinator2 wrote: post #75
barbazoo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that work here? Say I have that toothbrush, the app, and say I had to sign up to use it. What they know is how long the toothbrush is on. How are they going to monetize that data?

Well, say the app requests access to your contacts... so you can link up with friends! Or your files... so it can save your data locally! Or your location... well i don't know. The app doesn't only check your bruhing habits, it's 300mb! At any point it could be updated to do any amount of spying and you'll never be able to tell

> link up with friends!

Competitive brushing!

Re: Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?

#148

Post by pfdietz »

barbazoo wrote: post #59
eagerpace wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To collect data so they can do marketing and advertising to customers.

How does that work here? Say I have that toothbrush, the app, and say I had to sign up to use it. What they know is how long the toothbrush is on. How are they going to monetize that data?

"Here's a list of consumers who were gullible enough to install our app!"

Re: Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?

#149

Post by SushiHippie »

I just checked on the Play Store and it seems like the Oral B Android App is "only" 67MB. I wonder if these were developed by different teams and maybe it doesn't have those large PDFs?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pg.oralb.o...

Re: Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?

#150

Post by cj »

alentred wrote: post #136
0x0 wrote: post #64

The Oral-B app was fun a few years ago when it was fairly lightweight, showed an up-to-date current world events news feed, while logging data into apple health and encouraging a brushing streak. Then they rewrote the entire app and it lost almost all of those features. I never opened the app once after the first run after the upgrade. Really makes me wish for an iOS app store that would allow installing older versio…

> showed an up-to-date current world events news feed Say what now? Oral-B? World events news feed?

ADA recommends brushing your teeth for 4 minutes a day (2 mins morning/night).

2 minutes feels incredibly long for a lot of people. Doing something that feels productive or provides 2 minutes of entertainment while simultaneously operating as a timer seems like not so crazy of an idea.

Post reply on HN