I am flabbergasted!
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SWMBO has been telling me I need to lose weight for several months. So I went on-line to Noom.com this afternoon. I went through all of their B.S. and signed up for a 6 month program. I plunked down my $159.00 and expected to be emailed the Program guidelines. The website said I would hear from them right away. When nothing came after 3 hours I went on-line to registration support to find out what the issue was. After an extended "Chat" session I was informed that I had to use my phone to download an "APP" to participate in the program. This immediately fired me up as I don't run "Apps" on my phone. I use it to make calls, and receive calls, and send and receive text messages. The Texting thing is torture, as the form size is incredibly, ridicuously small and unusable for me. I have big fat clumsy fingers. Why would the dimwits that wrote the phone app, not realize they could have developed an application that could be run on both a phone or a desktop, or laptop at the same time. :mad::mad: Is it all the "cool kids" doing it? Don't they realize that most of the people out there wanting to lose weight, or struggling with Diabetes, are "Senior Citizens" like me, and did not grow up with mobile phones, texting or "apps". And I'd bet that most of them feel the same way I do. There are many people out there that can not afford to even have a mobile phone to begin with. If any of you guys work(ed) for Noom, please let me know what they/you were thinking. I am flabbergasted that they would exclude and alienate such a large portion of their market. I cancelled my subscription as soon as I found out what is involved. I learned a long time ago that businesses want as many customers as possible, and the goal is to make it easy for the customer to use your service or product. BTW: Whoever did their website should have put a great big message on every form "You can't use this program without using our Mobile Phone App! There was NO indication anywhere that the program could onyy be used on a mobile phone. The irony is they sure as hell have a complicated "App" running on their website! If you know anyone in charge at Noom ask them to call me. Finally, I know I am a cranky, old, S.O.B. and freely admit it. Telling me this is the case, and that I should move on with the times, would be a waste of effort.:cool:
Change is not always good. Especially when the only reason is to be"cool".
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SWMBO has been telling me I need to lose weight for several months. So I went on-line to Noom.com this afternoon. I went through all of their B.S. and signed up for a 6 month program. I plunked down my $159.00 and expected to be emailed the Program guidelines. The website said I would hear from them right away. When nothing came after 3 hours I went on-line to registration support to find out what the issue was. After an extended "Chat" session I was informed that I had to use my phone to download an "APP" to participate in the program. This immediately fired me up as I don't run "Apps" on my phone. I use it to make calls, and receive calls, and send and receive text messages. The Texting thing is torture, as the form size is incredibly, ridicuously small and unusable for me. I have big fat clumsy fingers. Why would the dimwits that wrote the phone app, not realize they could have developed an application that could be run on both a phone or a desktop, or laptop at the same time. :mad::mad: Is it all the "cool kids" doing it? Don't they realize that most of the people out there wanting to lose weight, or struggling with Diabetes, are "Senior Citizens" like me, and did not grow up with mobile phones, texting or "apps". And I'd bet that most of them feel the same way I do. There are many people out there that can not afford to even have a mobile phone to begin with. If any of you guys work(ed) for Noom, please let me know what they/you were thinking. I am flabbergasted that they would exclude and alienate such a large portion of their market. I cancelled my subscription as soon as I found out what is involved. I learned a long time ago that businesses want as many customers as possible, and the goal is to make it easy for the customer to use your service or product. BTW: Whoever did their website should have put a great big message on every form "You can't use this program without using our Mobile Phone App! There was NO indication anywhere that the program could onyy be used on a mobile phone. The irony is they sure as hell have a complicated "App" running on their website! If you know anyone in charge at Noom ask them to call me. Finally, I know I am a cranky, old, S.O.B. and freely admit it. Telling me this is the case, and that I should move on with the times, would be a waste of effort.:cool:
Change is not always good. Especially when the only reason is to be"cool".
There are a couple of sites I frequent which are good, yet the management has decided that mobile "apps" are better and seem to be killing their web sites in favor of mobile "apps" -- it's horrible and it's likely that they will lose lots of paying users.
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SWMBO has been telling me I need to lose weight for several months. So I went on-line to Noom.com this afternoon. I went through all of their B.S. and signed up for a 6 month program. I plunked down my $159.00 and expected to be emailed the Program guidelines. The website said I would hear from them right away. When nothing came after 3 hours I went on-line to registration support to find out what the issue was. After an extended "Chat" session I was informed that I had to use my phone to download an "APP" to participate in the program. This immediately fired me up as I don't run "Apps" on my phone. I use it to make calls, and receive calls, and send and receive text messages. The Texting thing is torture, as the form size is incredibly, ridicuously small and unusable for me. I have big fat clumsy fingers. Why would the dimwits that wrote the phone app, not realize they could have developed an application that could be run on both a phone or a desktop, or laptop at the same time. :mad::mad: Is it all the "cool kids" doing it? Don't they realize that most of the people out there wanting to lose weight, or struggling with Diabetes, are "Senior Citizens" like me, and did not grow up with mobile phones, texting or "apps". And I'd bet that most of them feel the same way I do. There are many people out there that can not afford to even have a mobile phone to begin with. If any of you guys work(ed) for Noom, please let me know what they/you were thinking. I am flabbergasted that they would exclude and alienate such a large portion of their market. I cancelled my subscription as soon as I found out what is involved. I learned a long time ago that businesses want as many customers as possible, and the goal is to make it easy for the customer to use your service or product. BTW: Whoever did their website should have put a great big message on every form "You can't use this program without using our Mobile Phone App! There was NO indication anywhere that the program could onyy be used on a mobile phone. The irony is they sure as hell have a complicated "App" running on their website! If you know anyone in charge at Noom ask them to call me. Finally, I know I am a cranky, old, S.O.B. and freely admit it. Telling me this is the case, and that I should move on with the times, would be a waste of effort.:cool:
Change is not always good. Especially when the only reason is to be"cool".
I have terrible news for you, the number of people who can afford a $159 weight loss program and who do NOT have a smart phone must be tiny, your decision not to load "apps" into your phone is just you being a grumpy old bugger. I just wish the young whippersnappers would used a decent sized font.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity - RAH I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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There are a couple of sites I frequent which are good, yet the management has decided that mobile "apps" are better and seem to be killing their web sites in favor of mobile "apps" -- it's horrible and it's likely that they will lose lots of paying users.
PIEBALDconsult wrote:
...yet the management has decided that mobile "apps" are better
at targeting ads, and tracking users. They are not wrong.
The Science of King David's Court | Object Oriented Programming with C++
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SWMBO has been telling me I need to lose weight for several months. So I went on-line to Noom.com this afternoon. I went through all of their B.S. and signed up for a 6 month program. I plunked down my $159.00 and expected to be emailed the Program guidelines. The website said I would hear from them right away. When nothing came after 3 hours I went on-line to registration support to find out what the issue was. After an extended "Chat" session I was informed that I had to use my phone to download an "APP" to participate in the program. This immediately fired me up as I don't run "Apps" on my phone. I use it to make calls, and receive calls, and send and receive text messages. The Texting thing is torture, as the form size is incredibly, ridicuously small and unusable for me. I have big fat clumsy fingers. Why would the dimwits that wrote the phone app, not realize they could have developed an application that could be run on both a phone or a desktop, or laptop at the same time. :mad::mad: Is it all the "cool kids" doing it? Don't they realize that most of the people out there wanting to lose weight, or struggling with Diabetes, are "Senior Citizens" like me, and did not grow up with mobile phones, texting or "apps". And I'd bet that most of them feel the same way I do. There are many people out there that can not afford to even have a mobile phone to begin with. If any of you guys work(ed) for Noom, please let me know what they/you were thinking. I am flabbergasted that they would exclude and alienate such a large portion of their market. I cancelled my subscription as soon as I found out what is involved. I learned a long time ago that businesses want as many customers as possible, and the goal is to make it easy for the customer to use your service or product. BTW: Whoever did their website should have put a great big message on every form "You can't use this program without using our Mobile Phone App! There was NO indication anywhere that the program could onyy be used on a mobile phone. The irony is they sure as hell have a complicated "App" running on their website! If you know anyone in charge at Noom ask them to call me. Finally, I know I am a cranky, old, S.O.B. and freely admit it. Telling me this is the case, and that I should move on with the times, would be a waste of effort.:cool:
Change is not always good. Especially when the only reason is to be"cool".
Examples of this are EVERYWHERE. As a result of Covid, many restaurants have introduced order+pay apps so you don't need to interact with a person or touch menus etc. I can just about understand that BUT why implement it as an "app" (horrible term) rather than simply put the form on a (mobile-friendly) website? So much easier - nothing to download, no hardware / software requirements, easier to update, etc.. etc.. Also, because I don't use my phone for apps, I really don't need - or want - "mobile data". I use my phone, like you, to make phone calls. It's a pay-as-you-go and I top up £10 every couple of months or so, if that. So yes, I can use a website on it - if there's WiFi available. Many of these restaurants that have their own app don't even have wifi! But it gets worse... In the UK we have the "track and trace" app (which we're all supposed to use, everywhere). But it only runs on recent versions of Android or iOS. I have a 7-year old (very small + compact, with long battery life) mobile that runs Android 4. Yet the idiots put in some requirement or other into the app that requires the latest (or latest less one?) version of op system. (I guess that *may* be the app store requirement, but I don't think so - there are a few apps I've tested that download and run, like WhatsApp). In this case the Government is virtually forcing people to trash functional hardware and spend ten times the original cost on an "upgrade", together with all the environmental (plastics and energy etc) damage involved. [In fact it may be that it requires a recent version of Bluetooth which it uses to detect proximity - but they could SAY so and allow the proximity aspect to be disabled whilst still retaining the "scan in" QR aspects]
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Examples of this are EVERYWHERE. As a result of Covid, many restaurants have introduced order+pay apps so you don't need to interact with a person or touch menus etc. I can just about understand that BUT why implement it as an "app" (horrible term) rather than simply put the form on a (mobile-friendly) website? So much easier - nothing to download, no hardware / software requirements, easier to update, etc.. etc.. Also, because I don't use my phone for apps, I really don't need - or want - "mobile data". I use my phone, like you, to make phone calls. It's a pay-as-you-go and I top up £10 every couple of months or so, if that. So yes, I can use a website on it - if there's WiFi available. Many of these restaurants that have their own app don't even have wifi! But it gets worse... In the UK we have the "track and trace" app (which we're all supposed to use, everywhere). But it only runs on recent versions of Android or iOS. I have a 7-year old (very small + compact, with long battery life) mobile that runs Android 4. Yet the idiots put in some requirement or other into the app that requires the latest (or latest less one?) version of op system. (I guess that *may* be the app store requirement, but I don't think so - there are a few apps I've tested that download and run, like WhatsApp). In this case the Government is virtually forcing people to trash functional hardware and spend ten times the original cost on an "upgrade", together with all the environmental (plastics and energy etc) damage involved. [In fact it may be that it requires a recent version of Bluetooth which it uses to detect proximity - but they could SAY so and allow the proximity aspect to be disabled whilst still retaining the "scan in" QR aspects]
Me too. I got my phone in 2005, amd it still does everithing I want it to. When I get to a restaurant that requires scanning an OCR code, I tell them to bring me a paper menu, and if they don't, I just get up and leave. And yes, I am just a grumpy old fart.
Zaphod
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SWMBO has been telling me I need to lose weight for several months. So I went on-line to Noom.com this afternoon. I went through all of their B.S. and signed up for a 6 month program. I plunked down my $159.00 and expected to be emailed the Program guidelines. The website said I would hear from them right away. When nothing came after 3 hours I went on-line to registration support to find out what the issue was. After an extended "Chat" session I was informed that I had to use my phone to download an "APP" to participate in the program. This immediately fired me up as I don't run "Apps" on my phone. I use it to make calls, and receive calls, and send and receive text messages. The Texting thing is torture, as the form size is incredibly, ridicuously small and unusable for me. I have big fat clumsy fingers. Why would the dimwits that wrote the phone app, not realize they could have developed an application that could be run on both a phone or a desktop, or laptop at the same time. :mad::mad: Is it all the "cool kids" doing it? Don't they realize that most of the people out there wanting to lose weight, or struggling with Diabetes, are "Senior Citizens" like me, and did not grow up with mobile phones, texting or "apps". And I'd bet that most of them feel the same way I do. There are many people out there that can not afford to even have a mobile phone to begin with. If any of you guys work(ed) for Noom, please let me know what they/you were thinking. I am flabbergasted that they would exclude and alienate such a large portion of their market. I cancelled my subscription as soon as I found out what is involved. I learned a long time ago that businesses want as many customers as possible, and the goal is to make it easy for the customer to use your service or product. BTW: Whoever did their website should have put a great big message on every form "You can't use this program without using our Mobile Phone App! There was NO indication anywhere that the program could onyy be used on a mobile phone. The irony is they sure as hell have a complicated "App" running on their website! If you know anyone in charge at Noom ask them to call me. Finally, I know I am a cranky, old, S.O.B. and freely admit it. Telling me this is the case, and that I should move on with the times, would be a waste of effort.:cool:
Change is not always good. Especially when the only reason is to be"cool".
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SWMBO has been telling me I need to lose weight for several months. So I went on-line to Noom.com this afternoon. I went through all of their B.S. and signed up for a 6 month program. I plunked down my $159.00 and expected to be emailed the Program guidelines. The website said I would hear from them right away. When nothing came after 3 hours I went on-line to registration support to find out what the issue was. After an extended "Chat" session I was informed that I had to use my phone to download an "APP" to participate in the program. This immediately fired me up as I don't run "Apps" on my phone. I use it to make calls, and receive calls, and send and receive text messages. The Texting thing is torture, as the form size is incredibly, ridicuously small and unusable for me. I have big fat clumsy fingers. Why would the dimwits that wrote the phone app, not realize they could have developed an application that could be run on both a phone or a desktop, or laptop at the same time. :mad::mad: Is it all the "cool kids" doing it? Don't they realize that most of the people out there wanting to lose weight, or struggling with Diabetes, are "Senior Citizens" like me, and did not grow up with mobile phones, texting or "apps". And I'd bet that most of them feel the same way I do. There are many people out there that can not afford to even have a mobile phone to begin with. If any of you guys work(ed) for Noom, please let me know what they/you were thinking. I am flabbergasted that they would exclude and alienate such a large portion of their market. I cancelled my subscription as soon as I found out what is involved. I learned a long time ago that businesses want as many customers as possible, and the goal is to make it easy for the customer to use your service or product. BTW: Whoever did their website should have put a great big message on every form "You can't use this program without using our Mobile Phone App! There was NO indication anywhere that the program could onyy be used on a mobile phone. The irony is they sure as hell have a complicated "App" running on their website! If you know anyone in charge at Noom ask them to call me. Finally, I know I am a cranky, old, S.O.B. and freely admit it. Telling me this is the case, and that I should move on with the times, would be a waste of effort.:cool:
Change is not always good. Especially when the only reason is to be"cool".
I'm with you. Web sites that will only allow a "mobile phone number" for a confirmation; no other number or email address.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it. ― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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SWMBO has been telling me I need to lose weight for several months. So I went on-line to Noom.com this afternoon. I went through all of their B.S. and signed up for a 6 month program. I plunked down my $159.00 and expected to be emailed the Program guidelines. The website said I would hear from them right away. When nothing came after 3 hours I went on-line to registration support to find out what the issue was. After an extended "Chat" session I was informed that I had to use my phone to download an "APP" to participate in the program. This immediately fired me up as I don't run "Apps" on my phone. I use it to make calls, and receive calls, and send and receive text messages. The Texting thing is torture, as the form size is incredibly, ridicuously small and unusable for me. I have big fat clumsy fingers. Why would the dimwits that wrote the phone app, not realize they could have developed an application that could be run on both a phone or a desktop, or laptop at the same time. :mad::mad: Is it all the "cool kids" doing it? Don't they realize that most of the people out there wanting to lose weight, or struggling with Diabetes, are "Senior Citizens" like me, and did not grow up with mobile phones, texting or "apps". And I'd bet that most of them feel the same way I do. There are many people out there that can not afford to even have a mobile phone to begin with. If any of you guys work(ed) for Noom, please let me know what they/you were thinking. I am flabbergasted that they would exclude and alienate such a large portion of their market. I cancelled my subscription as soon as I found out what is involved. I learned a long time ago that businesses want as many customers as possible, and the goal is to make it easy for the customer to use your service or product. BTW: Whoever did their website should have put a great big message on every form "You can't use this program without using our Mobile Phone App! There was NO indication anywhere that the program could onyy be used on a mobile phone. The irony is they sure as hell have a complicated "App" running on their website! If you know anyone in charge at Noom ask them to call me. Finally, I know I am a cranky, old, S.O.B. and freely admit it. Telling me this is the case, and that I should move on with the times, would be a waste of effort.:cool:
Change is not always good. Especially when the only reason is to be"cool".
I recently leased a Chevrolet Bolt EUV; one of the nice things about it is that I can check the status of the battery, etc., remotely. As of September, they're dropping that access from the website; it will only be available via an app. That app is particularly obnoxious; about every 3rd or 4th time I try to use it, it just hangs on startup. So far, the only fix I've found is to delete the app and reinstall it. In addition, to be prepared for any trip beyond the base range of the car, I've had to add 7(!) apps to my phone - MyChevrolet to talk to the car, ABetterRoutePlanner (ABRP) to plan the route including charging stops, PlugShare to check to make sure that the charging stops ABRP picked actually exist and are working, plus Blink, ChargePoint, Electrify America and EVgo so that I can actually use the chargers. Apparently very few of the chargers are set up to allow you to swipe a credit card; they all want you to use their app instead. I really enjoy driving the car, but I'm less than thrilled with having to depend on a smartphone to be able to do much beyond local trips. At least the car has wireless charging capability that works with my phone, and Android Auto to let me mirror the phone display on the car's much larger screen.
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I recently leased a Chevrolet Bolt EUV; one of the nice things about it is that I can check the status of the battery, etc., remotely. As of September, they're dropping that access from the website; it will only be available via an app. That app is particularly obnoxious; about every 3rd or 4th time I try to use it, it just hangs on startup. So far, the only fix I've found is to delete the app and reinstall it. In addition, to be prepared for any trip beyond the base range of the car, I've had to add 7(!) apps to my phone - MyChevrolet to talk to the car, ABetterRoutePlanner (ABRP) to plan the route including charging stops, PlugShare to check to make sure that the charging stops ABRP picked actually exist and are working, plus Blink, ChargePoint, Electrify America and EVgo so that I can actually use the chargers. Apparently very few of the chargers are set up to allow you to swipe a credit card; they all want you to use their app instead. I really enjoy driving the car, but I'm less than thrilled with having to depend on a smartphone to be able to do much beyond local trips. At least the car has wireless charging capability that works with my phone, and Android Auto to let me mirror the phone display on the car's much larger screen.