Review Insights · App Store
Marco Polo - Video Messenger
Joya Communications · 2,152,398 ratings · ★ 4.8
4.8
★★★★★
2,152,398 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 19 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
"free"
6 negative reviews mention this · 32% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Used to be great-greed ruined it. It’s really a huge disappointment. My whole family loved Marco Polo. It was our preferred method of keeping in touch. We would use the Sharecast feature for video updates of our kids. The ability to upload videos, the unlimited storage, eve…" - Film Fatale
2
"features"
5 negative reviews mention this · 26% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Used to be great-greed ruined it. It’s really a huge disappointment. My whole family loved Marco Polo. It was our preferred method of keeping in touch. We would use the Sharecast feature for video updates of our kids. The ability to upload videos, the unlimited storage, eve…" - Film Fatale
3
"family"
4 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Used to be great-greed ruined it. It’s really a huge disappointment. My whole family loved Marco Polo. It was our preferred method of keeping in touch. We would use the Sharecast feature for video updates of our kids. The ability to upload videos, the unlimited storage, eve…" - Film Fatale
4
"polo"
4 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Used to be great-greed ruined it. It’s really a huge disappointment. My whole family loved Marco Polo. It was our preferred method of keeping in touch. We would use the Sharecast feature for video updates of our kids. The ability to upload videos, the unlimited storage, eve…" - Film Fatale
5
"send"
4 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Used to be great-greed ruined it. It’s really a huge disappointment. My whole family loved Marco Polo. It was our preferred method of keeping in touch. We would use the Sharecast feature for video updates of our kids. The ability to upload videos, the unlimited storage, eve…" - Film Fatale
6
"people"
4 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "WHY DID YOU REMOVE CLOSED CAPTIONS!!??. My wife is deaf and can only watch our family Polos with captions! Very ableist and a dirty trick by the developers and needs to be reversed! Even people who aren’t deaf or hard of hearing may like this feature to watch a Polo without the s…" - StormyLines
7
"marco"
3 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Used to be great-greed ruined it. It’s really a huge disappointment. My whole family loved Marco Polo. It was our preferred method of keeping in touch. We would use the Sharecast feature for video updates of our kids. The ability to upload videos, the unlimited storage, eve…" - Film Fatale
8
"feature"
3 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Used to be great-greed ruined it. It’s really a huge disappointment. My whole family loved Marco Polo. It was our preferred method of keeping in touch. We would use the Sharecast feature for video updates of our kids. The ability to upload videos, the unlimited storage, eve…" - Film Fatale
9
"video"
3 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Used to be great-greed ruined it. It’s really a huge disappointment. My whole family loved Marco Polo. It was our preferred method of keeping in touch. We would use the Sharecast feature for video updates of our kids. The ability to upload videos, the unlimited storage, eve…" - Film Fatale
10
"updates"
3 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Used to be great-greed ruined it. It’s really a huge disappointment. My whole family loved Marco Polo. It was our preferred method of keeping in touch. We would use the Sharecast feature for video updates of our kids. The ability to upload videos, the unlimited storage, eve…" - Film Fatale
11
"videos"
3 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Used to be great-greed ruined it. It’s really a huge disappointment. My whole family loved Marco Polo. It was our preferred method of keeping in touch. We would use the Sharecast feature for video updates of our kids. The ability to upload videos, the unlimited storage, eve…" - Film Fatale
12
"version"
3 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Used to be great-greed ruined it. It’s really a huge disappointment. My whole family loved Marco Polo. It was our preferred method of keeping in touch. We would use the Sharecast feature for video updates of our kids. The ability to upload videos, the unlimited storage, eve…" - Film Fatale
📋 All 19 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").
Used to be great-greed ruined it
It’s really a huge disappointment. My whole family loved Marco Polo. It was our preferred method of keeping in touch. We would use the Sharecast feature for video updates of our kids. The ability to upload videos, the unlimited storage, even the transcripts of
Polos was great. What was really amazing is that as a Plus member you used to be able to gift temporary Plus Passes to a few friends for free. But now, Plus memberships got more expensive and in order to access any features you have to pay at least $80 and now you have to pay to send Passes. The free version offers literally nothing. Meanwhile, the video quality remains poor-particularly if you download a video to save it (since you have to pay if you want storage!). It sucks to see a once great app ruined by coercion.
Polos was great. What was really amazing is that as a Plus member you used to be able to gift temporary Plus Passes to a few friends for free. But now, Plus memberships got more expensive and in order to access any features you have to pay at least $80 and now you have to pay to send Passes. The free version offers literally nothing. Meanwhile, the video quality remains poor-particularly if you download a video to save it (since you have to pay if you want storage!). It sucks to see a once great app ruined by coercion.
It lags
The video most of the times doesn’t show up
WHY DID YOU REMOVE CLOSED CAPTIONS!!??
My wife is deaf and can only watch our family Polos with captions! Very ableist and a dirty trick by the developers and needs to be reversed! Even people who aren’t deaf or hard of hearing may like this feature to watch a Polo without the sound as to not disturb others.
The developers of this app are constantly removing basic features and placing them behind a paywall, which has lead me to turn off auto updates for my apps. I only update the app when it stops functioning. This way I retain all the features that were once free but now cost money.
The pro version should include extra features that are fun or “nice to have” but not a necessity.
The developers of this app are constantly removing basic features and placing them behind a paywall, which has lead me to turn off auto updates for my apps. I only update the app when it stops functioning. This way I retain all the features that were once free but now cost money.
The pro version should include extra features that are fun or “nice to have” but not a necessity.
Transcript copy removed from pro
Hopefully this is just a bug, but the absolute best feature and the reason me and my developers where using pro and sharing was the transcript copy feature. This has been removed and it is rather frustrating. We are working around this of course but we are a small hobby team right now with the hope of growing capital in the future.
ableist to get rid of captions
what a weird & ableist choice to decide to remove the captions option/CC button… I feel like it’s one of those things that now people need to pay for, since I have a free Marco Polo account, but really? making people pay so they can actually access something? I feel like that’s literally illegal, because you are supposed to make things that are available for the public accessible, and this is an app that’s available for the public, but you’ve decided to make it less accessible… you should not have to pay for accessibility. bring the captions button back.
Malicious functionality
App sends messages to wrong/unintended recipients without warning. Even after deleting the app and removing all data, app continues to send requests to random recipients. Unnacceptable.
So EXPENSIVE now. “Free version” terrible.
Stop making excuses. You created a great app and then ruined it by pay walling all of the features. You claim to have a free version, but the free version is so hard to use it’s ridiculous. It’s obvious only there for marketing purposes to catch people and suck them in. Cannot justify at these prices. The current annual price should be a one time forever charge and it should cost like a buck a month if you pay monthly.. Apple will put you out of business because now I can just send videos in my iMessages or to my kids in Snapchat
Terrible
It takes way too long to load + you need more emojis. 😟 I will show you the emojis I want:🤩🤨😋🤪🤯🫢
🤦🏼♂️. And I want all of this to be free.
🤦🏼♂️. And I want all of this to be free.
LOVE IT
I absolutely LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!
Auto premium membership
Greedy developers want your money without your decision
Great but greedy
This app used to be great but now most of the features are pay-walled. They send you bogus notifications to try and get you to open the app. The app is fine but it isn’t worth what they’re trying to squeeze out of people.
Can’t hear phone calls while using this app
I can never hear my phone calls while I’m making a video
Coercive rent seeking app
Removed a lot of features in an attempt to coerce you into paying infinite amounts of money via a rather high cost subscription. They also let you stack up a bunch of videos in an attempt to hold the videos as ransom for the subscription. I would have paid a single fee or perhaps a far more reasonable subscription but between the high cost and coercive marketing ill never buy in ever
Crazy price increase
I have loved this app for over 5 years. This year they are increasing the family plan by $40! That’s crazy, $119.99 to 159.99. They have not done any updates or improvements to justify such increase. Look elsewhere.
It should free
It should be free, not pay. Sadly million sheeples paid 🤣
Don’t yall
This app freezes constantly won’t load messages it’s trash but my damn family uses it
Please bring back closed captioning!
The transcript hasn’t been working and my app removed the closed captioning option so I have no way of reading what my friends are saying! Edit: They replied saying I should reach out to the support team, I already did 6 days ago with no response.
Stop
Marco Polo always trying to get somebody to pay for stuff. I don’t need to pay for anything. I’m 74 years old. Just let me get what’s mine and leave me alone. Thank you.
App has become super glitchy
It’s been driving me crazy. It stops in the middle of recording. Won’t play messages. Fix it. Please.
Sentiment summary
95%
Positive (4-5★)
3%
Neutral (3★)
2%
Negative (1-2★)