My question is: why do an Oral-B app and a Colgate app even exist?
Most "apps" are Trojans for the purpose of data collection.
What happens with the data that is collected is NOYB (none of your business).
Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?
181–190 of 247 posts
Re: Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
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!
That is the first thing I see in this thread that has a remote chance of being a legitimate feature! There are people who have trouble brushing regularly, and perhaps it could help some of them.
Re: Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?
#183Earlier 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…
> 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...
I think you're overestimating the competence of the shops that develop those apps. I bet that 90% of the code is just company's standard set of frameworks and advertising SDKs they put in every app without even thinking about it.
Re: Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?
#184The sad truth is that if you go to App Store > Your Accoun and refresh you will see that only handful of application are less than 100MB. In my case most apps are 300MB and we are talking only about update. I compared with Android and over there all apps are much less heavy. I noticed old Objective-C app used to much more slim and all Swift even after having ABI are big and fat. It's partially because of developer la…
I worked on this at Google. The modern Android app publishing format is designed entirely around being able to slice and dice apps so that users have the minimum downloaded and installed at any point.
Resources, architectures, languages, are only downloaded as needed, but it also gets further into a few domain specific things such as game asset texture compression formats[0], so not only do phones only get the textures they need, but developers can publish in multiple formats so that users can get the best option their device supports.
There's also on-demand code module downloading and installing too. This means you can, for example, pull your registration process out into a separate module, install it at the beginning, but then offload it after the user has registered, reducing the installed size (and reducing the chance your app gets uninstalled for taking up too much space). One developer has a multi-megabyte VOIP module for customer support, but doesn't actually download and install it until a user opens the support screen in the app, which means most users never have it installed.
[0]: https://developer.android.com/guide/playcore/asset-delivery/...
Re: Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably an accelerometer.
I could see that working if your head is locked in a vise, but otherwise that's hard to believe.
There's only so much maneuvering space, and so much time a single brushing session takes; perhaps the error of double integration is small enough they can get away with dead reckoning. Especially since you mouth is a small, confined space, so they could estimate its bounds and use that to further correct their position estimate.
(I imagine a system like this would need at least two accelerometers - one close to the tip, and another one in the grip area; the second one would be used to cancel out the movement of users' head and body, allowing the first one to effectively operate in a mouth-relative coordinate system.)
Re: Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?
#186The sad truth is that if you go to App Store > Your Accoun and refresh you will see that only handful of application are less than 100MB. In my case most apps are 300MB and we are talking only about update. I compared with Android and over there all apps are much less heavy. I noticed old Objective-C app used to much more slim and all Swift even after having ABI are big and fat. It's partially because of developer la…
Sure there is. Apple added new tools to do this even for dynamic libraries too!
Re: Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?
#187The sad truth is that if you go to App Store > Your Accoun and refresh you will see that only handful of application are less than 100MB. In my case most apps are 300MB and we are talking only about update. I compared with Android and over there all apps are much less heavy. I noticed old Objective-C app used to much more slim and all Swift even after having ABI are big and fat. It's partially because of developer la…
I worked on this at Google. The modern Android app publishing format is designed entirely around being able to slice and dice apps so that users have the minimum downloaded and installed at any point. Resources, architectures, languages, are only downloaded as needed, but it also gets further into a few domain specific things such as game asset texture compression formats[0], so not only do phones only get the textur…
Apple also has this too for developers that have large assets that they need on-demand. Code is not allowed to be downloaded.
Re: Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?
#188Re: Why is the Oral-B iOS app almost 300 MB? And why is Colgate's app even bigger..?
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s actually kind of cool. That’s exactly the sort of feedback that gets me to do things correctly. Detailed feedback has enabled me to consistently work out, wake up early and eat healthy. They’ve helped me keep those good habits going for 4 years now. I’m the kind of guy these apps are built for.
But "detailed feedback" isn't "accurate feedback". I mean, it's pretty 'neat' that it can tell you which teeth have been 'correctly' cleaned based on the amount of time you spend in a specific spot, but is that an accurate gauge? What if you (for whatever reason, doesn't matter) only ate on the left side of your mouth for dinner? You'd spend plenty of time on the left side, but the app might tell you you've done a ba…
> to me, it seems like it's a no brainer to me when my teeth are clean - I can feel it
Then I envy you, because the only thing I feel that's different before and after brushing is a generalized "my mouth is sticky on the inside" feeling. I definitely lose track of how much time I spent cleaning each side relatively, and I'm sure there are areas I rarely reach because I don't know the brush isn't touching them.
I'd love having a toothbrush that would monitor if I reach every spot as a baseline; I can handle my problem teeth or any eating side imbalance on my own, especially that there is no rule saying you need to brush exactly 2 minutes (or 2.5 or whatever) and not a second more - I could do my baseline and spend extra 30 seconds or so in the problem areas.