Review Insights · App Store
Planes Live - Flight Tracker
Mosaic S.r.l. · 93,141 ratings · ★ 4.6
4.6
★★★★★
93,141 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 76 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"
22 negative reviews mention this · 29% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Was a good app before, now not so much. Was good app before, then they turned it into having to pay for a plan. If you don’t pay, the free version is almost unusable. Rarely use it now, I’ve switched to other flight tracking apps." - Bballchick8190
2
"flight"
17 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Was a good app before, now not so much. Was good app before, then they turned it into having to pay for a plan. If you don’t pay, the free version is almost unusable. Rarely use it now, I’ve switched to other flight tracking apps." - Bballchick8190
3
"subscription"
16 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Used to be great. Now It’s terrible. Used to be a useful app and a must on each flight or even sitting on my deck at home. Now it’s hot garbage, filled with pop up ads and constant prompts for a subscription." - MRplat_prem
4
"trial"
11 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "No real free trial. The only way to try the app is to agree to pay for a subscription. So if you don't like the app you have to remember to cancel the subscription. It's a scam to weasels money out of unsuspecting people." - Nicolas S,
5
"planes"
10 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Planes Live Scam. They say you can cancel within the 1st week, but never contact you or give you an option to cancel. Can not get them to give me an actual phone number to speak with a human being!!!!" - Steveharlan406!
6
"paid"
10 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "unsbscribed. paid for a lifetime subscription, got more forced into weekly/monthly subscription. did not agree to this one sided change. not trustworthy, not recommended" - Ibins1972
7
"version"
9 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Was a good app before, now not so much. Was good app before, then they turned it into having to pay for a plan. If you don’t pay, the free version is almost unusable. Rarely use it now, I’ve switched to other flight tracking apps." - Bballchick8190
8
"week"
9 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "What’s happening to this app? missing data?. Guys, this has been my go to app for tracking flights and making decisions on which flights to take and not to take based on Your historical delay information. Lately your data is completely missing flights. That exist. today I was looking …" - OberSkier
9
"flights"
8 negative reviews mention this · 11% of all complaints
★★★★★ "What’s happening to this app? missing data?. Guys, this has been my go to app for tracking flights and making decisions on which flights to take and not to take based on Your historical delay information. Lately your data is completely missing flights. That exist. today I was looking …" - OberSkier
📋 All 76 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").
Once great, now just spam
Just a big spam app now. Avoid.
Adult Ads Showing
Just installed and glad no kids were around as very graphic adult ads showing right at the top. I’m sure this is from a third party ad network but I’d be selecting one that was far more restrictive before dropping it on my application. I’m certain the application is built well based on the reviews but this is not acceptable.
F you very much
So Flight tracker I’ve been using for years all of a sudden stops working today and says I have to pay five dollars a week to use it, up yours certainly not worth it! Maybe $20 a year would be fine but not five dollars a week!!!
Flight tracker
You make it too difficult to terminate
New Update is Terrible
This used to be a great app, but now it is clunky.
Have to pay
Use to not have to pay now you do
Greedy
Hardly usable unless you pay
Junk
This is junk
No real free trial
The only way to try the app is to agree to pay for a subscription. So if you don't like the app you have to remember to cancel the subscription. It's a scam to weasels money out of unsuspecting people.
Horrible
This is really horrible. I do not want to pay for just to see flight track because I can’t even see my kids fly, and that does not make any sense. One stars should be good.🤬🤬🤬🤬😡😡😡😡
Too many ads make it unusable :(
Boooooo
Such a scam
I don't recomand this app at all, it is pretty bad about tracking flight and the strictly subcription rule
Illegal business practices
Expiration date is 8/12/25. Billed 8/8/25 canceled on 8/8/25They refused a refund twice. How do u charge before expiration date and refuse a refund if you canceled before the expiration date. It may be a lousy $9.99 but the BBB will decide on their business practices.
so bad it's comical.
This was a great app and I loved it. As of late it's garbage. You can point it directly at a plane in the sky and absolutely nothing shows up. Don't waste your time.
Too many ads
Way too many ads to use the app. Watched a video, clicked back, then saw the ad again, then watched the ad again and tried to close, but it wouldn’t.
Planes Live Scam
They say you can cancel within the 1st week, but never contact you or give you an option to cancel. Can not get them to give me an actual phone number to speak with a human being!!!!
Minimal Coverage
Price almost tripled and coverage is worse now.
Canceling App. Demanding a refund.
Canceling App. Demanding a refund.
unsbscribed
paid for a lifetime subscription, got more forced into weekly/monthly subscription.
did not agree to this one sided change.
not trustworthy, not recommended
did not agree to this one sided change.
not trustworthy, not recommended
Deceptive
U pick free access and they start trial period.
Rip off
I got charged a week for a free week subscription 😡😡
Update not good
I am 20 miles north of DFW and check on overhead flights often. The new upgrade is bad and many times the flight shown overhead is already on the ground at DFW when I click on it. I liked the older version much better. The new deal of broken lines fore and aft of flight with plane shown miles way from actual location is a downgrade from earlier version.
Bait and switch
Free app!! Until you open it and immediately have to sign a subscription, idiots.
App cost
$10 A WEEK to track planes? Yeah right. Bye planes live, won’t miss ya
Blake Mirror
Like an episode of Black Mirror what used to be basic is now Lux 😂
Have to sign up for free trial
One week free trial is available but you have to sign up for reoccurring payments. So not worth it at all
Do not download this app
You have to pay to sign in this app. It’s $99+ for a whole year. If you want a app to track planes download a app that you not have to pay to sign in. I’m sorry to write this review but make it free to sign in.
Ripoff/Scam
Not a TOTAL & COMPLETE WASTE‼️ 🤮
Maybe it’s just me…but SURELY there is an App out there for people that only fly a few hours a MONTH‼️ 👀😿😿😿
Maybe it’s just me…but SURELY there is an App out there for people that only fly a few hours a MONTH‼️ 👀😿😿😿
Annoying pop up
You’ll be greeted with an annoying pop up offering a subscription way too often, nice UI though, shame
Got charged anyway
Tired it with free trial and didn’t like it cancelled it and was still charged for an app I’ve deleted and don’t use requested a refund from Apple but was denied
Planes Live Free (We will make it useless you you pay)
Looking for a solid low cost or free ADS-B flight tracker…this is not the app for you…developers immediately try to rope you into a subscription from the start. Their free options are weak, and give you 3-5 touches on the app before their pay wall opens again. This is a garbage app simply based on this type of purchase strategy.
Scam
Deceptive, misleading, and dishonest do not double click as you are subscribing
Looks good but not free
Bait and switch. One week free then either $10 a week or $100 a year. Don't pee on me and tell me it's raining.
Used to be a good app
This app used to be the go to. But now they require subscriptions which basically makes the app useless. Do yourself a favor and download PLANE FINDER instead which offers the same core functions for free which you now have to pay for on planes live.
Paid App?!?
I thought I paid for this already, now I have to pay a subscription??? Wasn’t it a one time fee???
Abusadores
Son unos ladranos se suponía que me cobrarían luego de una semana y me debitaron mi dinero al instante
Another bait & switch from paid app to subscription based
I hate it when I as a customer, purchase an app on the iTunes Store and at the time I purchased the app it was a one time purchase for life. Yet after the fact (purchase) the company decides to change their business model from a pay once and own for life over to a subscription based model. To me this is akin to a bait and switch, after the fact, and leaves the customer out in the cold, i.e., the app that I originally purchased under a plan of pay once, use for life, is now changed to a subscription model, but only one side agreed to do this change, after the fact. Customers who purchased under the original buy once, good for life, should be grandfathered away from the firm’s subscription model, for this wasn’t the model we originally bought into. The ethics and morals of such a business practice are inherently unfair to their original customers👎😡!
Horrible - showed flight went back while it did not
My 6 year old is flying with airline assistance and I downloaded this app so I could track his flight every step of the way.
After an hour it showed the plane did a u turn and was back at Dulles. I started freaking out and called the airline and it was still in route. It did not turn back and there are no issues.
Horrible and I accurate app!
After an hour it showed the plane did a u turn and was back at Dulles. I started freaking out and called the airline and it was still in route. It did not turn back and there are no issues.
Horrible and I accurate app!
Failed Tracker
I usually track family flights overseas and this tracker works fine until it doesn’t. In the middle of the flight all data is removed and the plane disappears showing the red line going back to the airport. I try powering off but still a no go. What am I paying for? Apparently not to track a plane.
What is this app taking so long It’s so horrible.
This is taking forever don’t get this
Deleting
This app is getting worse and more expensive at the same time
Inaccurate
Information is so inaccurate it’s embarrassing can’t find any flights and the worst app to navigate
The service drop dead
Doesn’t work but the kept charging the yearly fee 😡
Too many ads
It's okay to have ads in a free version but it's enough to be abused by the amount of ads it has now, I've always used this app and it was excellent, now it's horrible. I'm downloading another one.
Review
The app is doing all kinds of crazy things the biggest is showing planes going in directions that they reall are not very frustrating it didn’t used to do that.
Useless and dishonest and no communication is allowed
Useless. You show my flight in time and has 2 Hours delay. There is no way to contact anyone and share information and you charged me for ONE full year with the trick or the trial. I want my money back and the subscription cancelled.
Joking right?
$7.99 a week for this? Thats outrageous. Bye app.
Was great, but totally ripped me off!
I switched to a new iPhone to which to my dismay was requested to pay a monthly fee for the premium version of this app AFTER I PAID FOR A PREMIUM PERMANENT VERSION on my other phone! I am getting sick and tired of these app creators greed and asking for monthly fees and screwing over people who already bought a premium NOT MONTHLY subscription! I wonder if I can sue the creators of this app for taking my money and taking away my access!?
Used to be free for basic tracking. Not anymore!
Subscription services have got out of hand. If I had to pay a subscription fee for every app that I wanted, I’d be paying thousands of dollars a month. This is not sustainable model for the consumer!
I’ve limited the number of apps that I will pay a subscription fee to two. both of those are for my work. So if I want an app for fun and there’s a subscription model only, then so be it, I will not pay for it.
I used to support the idea of apps costing more on the iOS store. There are some truly professional apps on the App Store that are worth $200 or $300. I have no problem paying that much for a One Time fee, if the app is equivalent to a desktop app or is something that I run my business on. Dorico is one such app. Dorico is a professional music notation program that derives none of its information from an external database. It’s all original code built by the developer. That’s why it’s worth the $120 one time fee that I paid for it. Dorico is one of the few truly desktop quality apps for professional use that exists on the iOS store.
I also thought apps should always offer both the One Time fee option and a subscription option. I understand that developers need a steady source of revenue to develop apps and to remain profitable.
Now, in 2024, developers have run with this idea and taken it way too far. do I really need to track planes every day of my life and pay $30 a month for the satisfaction of doing so? No,
I don’t.
Developers, make your money while you can. Because when economic hard times hit it’s going to be the subscription services that get cut off first. Be smart and offer a one time fee that’s equal to the true value of the app, and back off with the number of subscription models that you offer.
I’ve limited the number of apps that I will pay a subscription fee to two. both of those are for my work. So if I want an app for fun and there’s a subscription model only, then so be it, I will not pay for it.
I used to support the idea of apps costing more on the iOS store. There are some truly professional apps on the App Store that are worth $200 or $300. I have no problem paying that much for a One Time fee, if the app is equivalent to a desktop app or is something that I run my business on. Dorico is one such app. Dorico is a professional music notation program that derives none of its information from an external database. It’s all original code built by the developer. That’s why it’s worth the $120 one time fee that I paid for it. Dorico is one of the few truly desktop quality apps for professional use that exists on the iOS store.
I also thought apps should always offer both the One Time fee option and a subscription option. I understand that developers need a steady source of revenue to develop apps and to remain profitable.
Now, in 2024, developers have run with this idea and taken it way too far. do I really need to track planes every day of my life and pay $30 a month for the satisfaction of doing so? No,
I don’t.
Developers, make your money while you can. Because when economic hard times hit it’s going to be the subscription services that get cut off first. Be smart and offer a one time fee that’s equal to the true value of the app, and back off with the number of subscription models that you offer.
Active map
Won’t work show trip but won’t move. Very frustrated.
Grrrreeeeedy
I’m so unhappy with this app. You used to allow at least some minimal use of this app for free and then offered a subscription with more features. The minimal features were fine for me. And I was fine with watching a few ads. But that was just not good enough for you. Soon as I opened the latest updated app there is no free option. We are FORCED to subscribe (or take the free trial for a while which will jump to paid [especially if we forget to cancel]). Shame on you for getting greedy. I’m sure that will really limit your users. Freebie with apps will probs get u more money that subscribers. :(‘
+ 26 more in the clipboard copy
Sentiment summary
91%
Positive (4-5★)
4%
Neutral (3★)
6%
Negative (1-2★)