Review Insights · App Store
Cronometer: Calorie Counter
Cronometer Software Inc · 90,677 ratings · ★ 4.8
4.8
★★★★★
90,677 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 20 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"foods"
7 negative reviews mention this · 35% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Used to be good, now it’s bugfest.. Too many bugs. My favorite foods are missing half the time, the timestamp is buggy in recurring foods. It was initially good and now they somehow made it worse." - blanketroses
2
"every"
5 negative reviews mention this · 25% of all complaints
★★★★★ "They force the app to crash on ads. They force app to crash so you’ll upgrade to the paid version. I was actually considering upgrading. But now I won’t since I have to restart my phone 6X a day due to the app crashing every other time they show an ad. I won’t be bullied into…" - Mad in Colorado
3
"food"
5 negative reviews mention this · 25% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Used to be good, now it’s bugfest.. Too many bugs. My favorite foods are missing half the time, the timestamp is buggy in recurring foods. It was initially good and now they somehow made it worse." - blanketroses
4
"search"
5 negative reviews mention this · 25% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Stopped Working. I loved this app- so much better than the others- until this morning. This morning it stopped working. Will not recognize any food I enter. No foods come up when I search for them. All the food I’ve logged each day is gone. GONE!!!!" - ScubaPineapple
5
"paid"
4 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "They force the app to crash on ads. They force app to crash so you’ll upgrade to the paid version. I was actually considering upgrading. But now I won’t since I have to restart my phone 6X a day due to the app crashing every other time they show an ad. I won’t be bullied into…" - Mad in Colorado
6
"phone"
4 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "They force the app to crash on ads. They force app to crash so you’ll upgrade to the paid version. I was actually considering upgrading. But now I won’t since I have to restart my phone 6X a day due to the app crashing every other time they show an ad. I won’t be bullied into…" - Mad in Colorado
7
"apple"
4 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "The ads crash the app. Good app, but the ads crash the entire app every single time, and they’re popping up more often. Update: The app is now serving malicious ads, “Your QR Code Reader is broken” and “Your Apple ID is locked” with a fake iphone background, mal…" - maybe 75% less ads
8
"morning"
4 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Was happy until yesterday…. I started using this app approximately a month or so, ago and it was PERFECT. A bit of a learning curve coming from a different calorie counting app, but I picked it up quick enough. Now, as of yesterday morning, when I’m connected to my Wi…" - Norahwld
9
"version"
3 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "They force the app to crash on ads. They force app to crash so you’ll upgrade to the paid version. I was actually considering upgrading. But now I won’t since I have to restart my phone 6X a day due to the app crashing every other time they show an ad. I won’t be bullied into…" - Mad in Colorado
10
"other"
3 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "They force the app to crash on ads. They force app to crash so you’ll upgrade to the paid version. I was actually considering upgrading. But now I won’t since I have to restart my phone 6X a day due to the app crashing every other time they show an ad. I won’t be bullied into…" - Mad in Colorado
11
"broken"
3 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "The ads crash the app. Good app, but the ads crash the entire app every single time, and they’re popping up more often. Update: The app is now serving malicious ads, “Your QR Code Reader is broken” and “Your Apple ID is locked” with a fake iphone background, mal…" - maybe 75% less ads
12
"being"
3 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "You need to eliminate ads for a week on the trial.. Downloaded to try this out after being a longtime LoseIt user. After two days started getting 10 second Instagram ads every time I tried to trial the program. Hard pass." - SleepyStork
📋 All 20 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
They force the app to crash on ads
They force app to crash so you’ll upgrade to the paid version. I was actually considering upgrading. But now I won’t since I have to restart my phone 6X a day due to the app crashing every other time they show an ad. I won’t be bullied into upgrading. In the company’s response they said that “crashes aren’t expected behavior” But I’ve read other reviews complaining of the same. Please just fix your app and stop telling people to reach out to you. We’re telling you here that the app is crashing because of the ads. So fix it.
You need to eliminate ads for a week on the trial.
Downloaded to try this out after being a longtime LoseIt user. After two days started getting 10 second Instagram ads every time I tried to trial the program. Hard pass.
Sketchy
The app itself seems awesome and I was very excited about it. And I would’ve considered purchasing the paid version. However, I will NEVER do that simply because of the way that they trick you into using it for a couple of days and then bombard you with ads every time you enter an item. Basically trying to force you into purchasing it. I think this is a sketchy business model so therefore I will not support this app.
Sync to other apps
I am having a hard time syncing my Cronometer to everfit. It has been difficult.
Bait and Switch
The calorie tracking features of this app function very similar to competitors and the subscription price is reasonable. However I chose this app for the Apple Watch support, specifically the ability to add food from your watch. I typically do not carry a phone and rely on my watch (which is connected to cellular). This app advertised a watch app that allows you to add food. After I purchased the subscription I was in formed that not only does the watch app not work but Cronometer knows it doesn’t work and they have it in their backlog. So they are advertising a feature that they know does not work. Feels illegal.
Ads are too Intrusive
The app itself is great. I’ve previously paid for Gold and had a great experience. The ads that are currently a part of the free tier are wayyyy to intrusive. Taking over the full screen while I’m actively entering information just isn’t user friendly, and to rub salt in the wound the ad was for a malicious domain attempting to convince me my phone has a virus. Needs more diligence on the developers part if this is the path they want to take.
Another useless app
Randomly malfunctions and forgets ALL of the foods saved to favorites, and won’t show any results when searching for them again. Completely useless, I would never pay for this
Trash
Working one day, literally can’t search foods, doesn’t have results and is unusable the next day unless you scan barcodes. An egg doesn’t have a barcode….
Super buggy out of nowhere
Worked fine until this morning when I try to add a food in the search bar nothing shows up anymore.
Currently broken
Cannot log food because the app is currently broken and showing a gray screen on my diary, as well as the search bar not returning any food items so the app is currently unusable
Apple watch functionality
I purchased the Gold membership and the watch version will not work. I attempted the “fixes” found on the web with no luck. Very disappointing, especially after paying for the subscription.
The ads crash the app
Good app, but the ads crash the entire app every single time, and they’re popping up more often.
Update: The app is now serving malicious ads, “Your QR Code Reader is broken” and “Your Apple ID is locked” with a fake iphone background, malvertising. FIX IT!!
Update: The app is now serving malicious ads, “Your QR Code Reader is broken” and “Your Apple ID is locked” with a fake iphone background, malvertising. FIX IT!!
Lacks Fundamental Features
This app is flashy and neat to explore. That being said, it adds any calories you burn to your daily calorie budget. This is fundamentally wrong and if you follow that number then you will never lose weight (those calories are already accounted for in the formula it uses to decide your daily budget). This app seems to be designed to prevent weight loss while dazzling you with all kinds of data measurements to distract from that fact. I would be genuinely shocked if someone new to fitness used this app and successfully reached their goals.
Was happy until yesterday…
I started using this app approximately a month or so, ago and it was PERFECT. A bit of a learning curve coming from a different calorie counting app, but I picked it up quick enough. Now, as of yesterday morning, when I’m connected to my WiFi, as I have been all along, I have a pop up on this app telling me that I need to connect to the internet to use it 😒 As stated, I was already connected and have had ZERO issues with any other app. I restarted my phone, rebooted my wifi, uninstalled and reinstalled the app, all with no success. I decided to unpair my wifi and tried the app…and it worked fine! I don’t get what’s going on at all. So now, for the last 24 hrs, I’ve had to get out of wifi every time I use the app (which is a few times a day) and remember to get back on wifi when done, which I’ve already forgotten a few times due to getting distracted with…life. Why is this happening and how can this be fixed? In all honesty, I’d just move on to another app but I just paid $60 for the whole year! I hope someone sees this and can help me.
Used to be good, now it’s bugfest.
Too many bugs. My favorite foods are missing half the time, the timestamp is buggy in recurring foods. It was initially good and now they somehow made it worse.
Great app …but
The app works great but the ads are super intrusive. It feels like the more I use the app the quicker than push more ads to me. Tried to use this app as an alt to Samsung health but damn the freemium model is a mixed bag
Comprehensive Info Difficult to Use
I absolutely love the accuracy and comprehensiveness of this app, but what a pain to use. This morning I created a custom recipe which was complicated. Now I want to adjust the portion size and cannot do it even with the help of Gemini. It’s easy to adjust portion sizes on single foods but not on custom recipes. I found My Fitness Pal a lot easier to use even though it was less comprehensive. This low rating is simply based on its user friendliness being quite low. I wouldn’t mind if there was a manual built or a simple way to look at common questions, but there’s no help button, just a way to write to customer service. Ugh.
Stopped Working
I loved this app- so much better than the others- until this morning. This morning it stopped working. Will not recognize any food I enter. No foods come up when I search for them. All the food I’ve logged each day is gone. GONE!!!!
It’s broken
Today the app stopped working and allows for no searches for foods. Please fix.
Two-way sync and search disappointment
I gave this app a fair shot because of all the good reviews, but there were two things in particular that made it a dealbreaker for me. One, it will not sync and pull in nutritional data from Apple Health. Two, the food search functionality lacks AI integration and robust searching abilities. I found it very difficult to find foods I was searching for unless it’s entered almost exactly as it is in the database. I also felt a lot of common items were missing, despite the claim of many databases. I found using MicroFactor and FoodNoms together are a perfect pair instead.
Sentiment summary
96%
Positive (4-5★)
2%
Neutral (3★)
2%
Negative (1-2★)
