Nokia 'Regrets' Withings Health App Backlash (bbc.com)

Nokia says it is "regrettable" that problems with its Health Mate fitness-tracking app have frustrated users. From a report: Nokia took over health tech firm Withings in 2016 and recently replaced the Withings Health Mate app with a Nokia-branded version. Health Mate has been downloaded more than one million times from app stores. But many users have left one-star reviews, saying the new app removed popular features from the Withings version and had technical issues. The company told the BBC an update would "integrate missing features." Before being taken over by Nokia, Withings made internet-connected health products such as weighing scales and air quality monitors, which provided data for the Health Mate app.

Comments

Orly?

[Anonymous Coward]

With all of the "data" these companies have collected one would assume the optics alone would be enough to not do this.

Why?

[HalAtWork]

Why did they have to reinvent the wheel and not iterate on the already established tech? Loyal users appreciate consistency, and hearing about something like this will make people stop considering the tech in general. Appliances that do something properly, reliably, and consistently will become renowned and gain a favorable image and strong recommendations.

The general populace don't want gadgets and gimmicks, but appliances. Developers need to learn that. The constant UI reworkings, functionality being shuffled in and out, it needs to stop. It's frustrating and stressful. There needs to be a damn good reason and an equally good plan for shepherding users if there are any significant changes to things like this.

Re:Why?

[jbmartin6]

Also ask why? did all these user update an app which was working fine. Likely they just kept the default auto-update behavior. Stories like this long ago convinced me to avoid updates as much as I can.

Re:Why?

[nine-times]

Yeah... I don't know, I think it's mostly fine in this case. I've been using the app in question for a while. I used the old version. I'm using the new version. The old one had a bunch of problems. The new one has new and different problems. Mostly they do the same things, sort of, except the UI is a little more flat an minimalist in the new version.

Given some of the problems I was having with the old one, I wouldn't be surprised if they took one look at it and thought, "Yeesh. We're going to have to redo some of this from scratch." It was flaky. It crashed a fair amount. Sometimes it wouldn't connect to the devices. Sometimes it would take a long time to connect. So beyond wanting to re-brand and leave their own mark, the app just needed some work.

I'm not saying it couldn't have been handled better, but I don't think it's as big a deal as some are making it out to be, and it does seem like they're working on it.

Re:Why?

[sjames]

When a nasty exploit goes around that could have been prevented if people had just let auto updates work, will you again ask why?

The real question is why don't phones (or systems in general) have a go back button for individual software "upgrades".

Re:Why?

[MangoCats]

Then you have to ask yourself:

"Do my bathroom scale, air quality monitor, and cloud database really need to talk to each other to improve my life?"

Some things just haven't evolved into their final "appliance" form yet, like pets.com when they advertised in the Superbowl, they might be an idea with some merit, but it will take some revision before they can really serve a meaningful number of people in a meaningful way.

Re:Why?

[Just Some Guy]

I love that my bathroom scale talks to my phone (via HealthKit, which means that I'm the only person who can decrypt the information). It's nice to step on it and then have a nice chart update a few seconds later.

Re: Why?

[Miamicanes]

> Why did they have to reinvent the wheel and

> not iterate on the already established tech?

If Microsoft had anything to do with it, it was probably something stupid, like deciding to rewrite all the back-end software to use asp.net instead of whatever it was written in originally (probably Java or PHP).

Re:Why?

[HalAtWork]

I'd say no personally and go with self-contained appliances that don't rely on any additional devices. They are the simplest and most reliable. Some people are compelled to experience everything through their phone for some reason and it's not worth any of the tracking/convenience, especially since you have to be vigilant about any private data going through your phone as it is.

Re:Why?

[jbmartin6]

An OS exploit is a different thing than an exploit in some app most people ever heard of. All the recent non_petya victims had updating turned on for some Ukrainian software app, that was the initial infection vector. Whomp whomp. Should have had autoupdating turned off.

Re:Why?

[User0x45]

Yeah, what he said.

The old UI was meh, the new one is different. It is pretty limited in capacity and the old version displayed most of the information in an okay format. It is still limited and still shows most of it in an okay format.

The wifi scale concept is great, it is really simple, and if it just tracks that it is fine. There really isn't much to do with a single daily data point.
I like the scale so I bought the watch. It is pretty nice looking, but the functionality/data doesn't really do much for me. I still wear it though, and look at the data.

Get some of their stuff (if on a really good sale)

Re:Why?

[jbmartin6]

And the infamous Bank of Bangladesh "SWIFT hack" (which had nothing to do with SWIFT) got the first foothold via a fake PDF application update.

Re:Why?

[sjames]

Sure. There are fake updates that get installed and real ones that don't. But it's not realistic to ask why average phone users don't do an expert analysis of each update and without error install the good updates and reject the bad. Half the world screeches in one ear "UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE", and the other hald screeches in the other ear "DON'T UPDATE DON'T UPDATE". Expect random behavior.

Nokia...

[Frosty Piss]

Astonishing and unheard of discovery! Free app we bundled app sucks! We regret it! To atone for this faux pas, please accept this updated version that also sucks but maybe not quite as much or perhaps in different ways!

Wrong, Wrong, WRONG

[EndlessNameless]

Wrong.

Nokia is independent and sold on the NYSE. Ticker: NOK.

Nokia sold their mobile device division to Microsoft, which allowed Microsoft to sell phones---and prohibited Nokia from competing for several years.

With the expiration of the non-compete agreement, Nokia is once again able to sell phones under their own name. This is why the Nokia 5 and 6 are modern Android phones. Stock, affordable, solid, quick but not flagship---traditional Nokia, if anything.

Fun fact: Microsoft sold its phone business to HMD Global, who now partners with Nokia. The prodigal son has returned, as the old Nokia division is working closely with its parent once again.

Re: Wrong, Wrong, WRONG

[aliquis]

Wasn't it the feature phones business Microsoft sold?

NEFTA

[Hognoxious]

Another example of NEFTA

Nobody
Ever
Fucking
Tests
Anything

Re:If you need a "fitness gadget"

[__aaclcg7560]

Fitness gadgets aren't covered under the Republican health plan..

Withings is missing a letter...

[__aaclcg7560]

Should be Writhings.

Probably trying to prune the unprofitable parts

[rsilvergun]

maybe failing at it, it's hard to say. But I'd guess they've had a bunch of feature creep over the years and they're scaling back some of the less used features. A product like MS Office with near 100% market share and a virtual monopoly can do the 80/20 rule (80% of your users only use 20% of your features, but that's OK because they don't overlap and everybody's got that one feature they can't leave your product for) but a smaller product just doesn't have the user base and capital to keep throwing money at features used by a small base. A sort of niche within a niche.

I was about to complain about this today...

[Hussman32]

I have a Withings scale and it worked with my Fitbit app well, so I hadn't used HealthMate in a while. My Fitbit broke (another /. article for sure...) so I was looking for the app on the store and it wasn't there. Somehow I found HealthMate, installed it, and it's damn near useless.

Now I feel great that I can blame Finland!

Re:What's a Nokia?

[EzInKy]

That may very well be all Nokia ends up as. Before Microsoft destroyed them, Nokia made the best cellphones in the world, culminating with the N900. Mine is still working by the way, and I still amaze people when I demonstrate what a truly pocket computing device can be.

I rated it 1 star

[jemmyw]

I'm surprised to see this story picked up by the BBC and slashdot, it seems like too niche of a product. Anyway, I ended up giving it a 1 star rating too. Firs they removed most distinguishing graphics so it looked like some text hanging in a white sea. Then they made the main point bigger and removed other bits of text (like the title, so you couldn't tell what the number was for). And then finally, what really irritated me, they removed the bit at the top that indicated it was connected and syncing with the device. What did they replace it with? Whiteness. Didn't even both moving the existing stuff up a bit into the space, just a white blank space where previously there was something useful.