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

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

#131

Post by vorticalbox »

ragnese wrote: post #124
winternett wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To be fair, all of that tracking and data collection would still never add up to some 100MB. It's more likely that they have extremely unoptimized assets (images, icons, fonts, time zone data, sounds, etc) and/or are using one of these janky "frameworks" that let you slap together a half-baked "native" app in a few hours by translating your poorly-written JavaScript into poorly-written native code.

From the x thread 80% of the size is pdfs of their toothbrush products.

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

#132

Post by MaxBarraclough »

jakelsaunders94 wrote: post #51

Possibly a controversial opinion here but… who cares? I don’t mean this in a snarky way. If you’re an app developer you’ve got limited development time like everyone else. Most phones have at least 128gb internal memory and the app is downloaded over WiFi. I just don’t see this as a constraint. Sure you could have a CDN and lazy load but then the app doesn’t work without internet. Just dump it all on the device.

> who cares?

Some people have limited storage space remaining on their device. Some people have slow Internet, or capped Internet.

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

#133

Post by pixl97 »

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 having low defect rates, their software is also small and streamlined. They just don't have tons of external libraries they pull in unless it's for a legitimate reason.

Another large company in the same industry has almost everyone making their software as an external contractor. Employees turn over all the time and no one stays on a team long. I swear they make software by running 'npm install *'. Their software binaries/release are much much larger than the first company. Their defect rate is huge, which causes huge delays in releasing software because there are always a pile of showstopper security tasks before release that anything that's not showstopper gets ignored.

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

#134

Post by kelnos »

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 data about my brushing habits in order to sell it to... someone, who knows.

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

#135

Post by ragnese »

vorticalbox wrote: post #131
ragnese wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, all of that tracking and data collection would still never add up to some 100MB. It's more likely that they have extremely unoptimized assets (images, icons, fonts, time zone data, sounds, etc) and/or are using one of these janky "frameworks" that let you slap together a half-baked "native" app in a few hours by translating your poorly-written JavaScript into poorly-written native code.

From the x thread 80% of the size is pdfs of their toothbrush products.

Makes sense. I don't have an X account, so I can only see the linked post (AFAIK).

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

#136

Post by alentred »

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?

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

#137

Post by datavirtue »

antimemetics wrote: post #93
Wytwwww wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're logging actual data with those? Or do they make tooth brushes which monitor your mouth's biome or something like that these days?

Yes they make a 3d map of your mouth. It’s nonsensical but here we are

Product owners love that shit. No thoughts or analysis required. "That's so cool...I LOVE IT!" I hear that phrase used on so many boring, bad ideas.

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

#138

Post by kelnos »

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?

I can think of a few things at least:

* Collect data on brushing frequency and thoroughness, and sell that data to dental insurance companies. Perhaps not even anonymized, so they can raise your premiums if you don't brush as often or as well as they'd like.

* Nag you to buy brush replacements after a certain amount of time or certain number of uses.

* Use dark patterns to trick you into giving access to other, unrelated data on your phone, and sell this data to third parties.

* Market their other products to you, or even perhaps suggest other things (sold by marketing partners) to buy, like different kinds of toothpaste, floss, mouthwash, etc.

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

#139

Post by cal85 »

eloisant wrote: post #107
pif wrote: post #11

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

The app can tell you which teeth are correctly cleaned (i.e. you spend enough time on it) and which teeth you forgot or went too fast. Personally I just used it once and ended up removing it, but I can see some people using it to ensure their brushing is efficient. Anyway, it's completely optional, you can just use the brush ignoring the existence of the app.

How does it know which tooth you’re cleaning?
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