Named & Shamed
Keumars Afifi-Sabet puts the boot into tech villains, jargon-spouting companies and misbehaving software
SOFTWARE WARNING!Battery Doctor’s battery-draining alerts
My phone, an Oppo Find X3 Lite, has just turned three years old. You’d think it would still have plenty of life left, but it’s showing signs of age – most notably it drains power faster than before. So I made an appointment for a check-up with Battery Doctor (www.snipca. com/48840), an Android app from developer Anyscanner that claims to “monitor battery health”.
The reviews were pretty bad, averaging just 2.3 stars, so I wasn’t expecting much – but I’m here to try dodgy apps so you don’t have to. Within minutes it was clear that its 2.3 rating was very generous.
The app doesn’t look too bad. In screenshot 1you’ll see a well-designed dashboard showing battery health, capacity, temperature and other data. But all these are available in your phone’s settings. You don’t need an app to see them and you certainly don’t need an app that pesters you with alerts about your battery use (see screenshot 2 ).
Once you fight your way through the adverts (unavoidable banners and full-screen unskippable videos) you finally discover Battery Doctor’s miracle cure for saving power: turning off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and dimming your screen. You don’t need a medical degree to know that. For more detailed scans you have to pay for the Premium version.
Predictably, the app’s only contribution to my phone’s battery life was to drain it faster than if I hadn’t bothered downloading it in the first place. This is one doctor that deserves to be struck off.
WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT?
Meta
www.snipca.com
