CalAI is just objectively a bad app even discounting its AI calorie estimator as an irrelevant gimmick:
* the UX is bad
* the stats are laughable
* charts worse than nothing (really, misleading to look at)
* lacking basic functionality such as “duplicate for today”
* can’t see or export the meal photo
* their “streak” attempt at gamification is so bad it literally cannot count
And yes, the AI there is atrociously bad. Not only can it not reliably detect calorie content (I don’t think anyone could on a basis of a photo in general case), but it so often mislabels food (like the example in article) it’s just a comedic relief. And there’s a “Fix” button which does nothing.
It’s like they never really tried hard. Combined with the general lack of quality, looks like a typical quick money grab riding the AI hype wave. I’m pretty confident the app could be vibe-coded in a week (and that’s generous). Maybe the backend is more complex? Don’t think so as there are no social features, it just stores data.
Paid for a year (Android app) to see how well they applied AI to the field, now continue to use it like a meal photo log with some (manually entered) metadata, otherwise Excel would be a nicer solution.
AI dialed this to the max: The early vibe coding startup catches the worm. Working with designers, doing A/B tests, QA, product management, nowadays all of this will make you lose to the competition.
You just need to get something out that looks as if it works, that makes users feel as if it works, whether it really does or not, whether the quality is atrocious or good.
It's not that consumers don't care -- it's that "they" (i.e. "we") have been beaten down.
Connect an image labeling API to the USDA's database of nutrients, make a slick-looking app, and you have a product. Pay for some marketing, offer a three-day trial after which you auto-bill for a year, make refunds as difficult as possible, and you have a business. At $30/yr, 10k subscriptions (deliberate or accidental) gets you $210k after app store commission. If you're lucky, you get bought out for even more. If not, you still made good money for not much work.
Exactly. At what seems to be 30 USD a year, that's laughably low for most users. I'm actually impressed on the kids for finding a niche snake oil market and selling it to them.
* the UX is bad
* the stats are laughable
* charts worse than nothing (really, misleading to look at)
* lacking basic functionality such as “duplicate for today”
* can’t see or export the meal photo
* their “streak” attempt at gamification is so bad it literally cannot count
And yes, the AI there is atrociously bad. Not only can it not reliably detect calorie content (I don’t think anyone could on a basis of a photo in general case), but it so often mislabels food (like the example in article) it’s just a comedic relief. And there’s a “Fix” button which does nothing.
It’s like they never really tried hard. Combined with the general lack of quality, looks like a typical quick money grab riding the AI hype wave. I’m pretty confident the app could be vibe-coded in a week (and that’s generous). Maybe the backend is more complex? Don’t think so as there are no social features, it just stores data.
Paid for a year (Android app) to see how well they applied AI to the field, now continue to use it like a meal photo log with some (manually entered) metadata, otherwise Excel would be a nicer solution.