All Teeth Cleaning Apps Suck
Brushing your teeth is a tiny but significant thing that you can do for your health. If an app can make it easier to remember and make the job more enjoyable, wouldn’t that be convenient? Unfortunately, all the teeth cleaning apps I can find are terrible.
To give you an example of an almost good dental brushing app, take a look at Disney Magic Timer ( iOS / Android ), which is made for kids. When you start brushing your teeth, you see a screen full of foam. A cartoon toothbrush works in each quadrant of the screen for 30 seconds and slowly opens the image of the Monsters, Inc. You end up with half a gold star on your calendar for the day.
So, first of all, the good news: you are looking forward to the appearance of the picture (if you like Monsters, Inc. and are easily amused). This makes brushing your teeth more enjoyable, so you’re less likely to miss it. Secondly, the gold star on the calendar helps in habit formation .
But the app is an advertisement for Oral-B products with a cartoon brand. He asks you to scan the product every time you start brushing your teeth. The adult version of the app features news articles – better than cartoons, I think – and also starts with a product presentation: Buy a Bluetooth-enabled brush to unlock premium features. No thanks?
I wouldn’t complain about these apps if they were a good start. It would be great if I could choose another app that understands that I am using my damn old toothbrush . I would need to either give me something interesting to watch or learn from my own preferences – maybe grab my latest unread stories from Pocket? Show me some funny two-minute videos? It doesn’t take any imagination to figure out how to turn this app into something I look forward to using every morning.
But what did the app developers do? They either write plain old timers that work exactly like the timer built into your phone, except you just installed a separate app, or they write kids apps that are extremely literal: you brush your teeth while watching cartoon character brushing teeth.
It’s 2016 guys. We can do better than that.