McDonalds “Track My Maccas”: Why this is the Crappest App of 2013

Useless apps. I’ve downloaded a few stinkers in my day. The Bible app kept crashing my phone – further convincing me that the apocalypse was nigh. I couldn’t find a Koran app – they are all in Arabic. The Torah apps were too expensive and the Bhagavad-Gita app keeps sending me ads for cronuts.

Religious apps aside, I delete apps that don’t enhance my life, or those I don’t use very often. My friend mentioned to me that he frequently goes on ‘apps purges’ and gets rid of any he is not using. He, however, is a classic minimalist. When I go over to his house and into his bedroom he only seems to have a nicely made bed, a single pair of shoes and one pen on display. Next to a photo of his mum. I tell him it’s like walking into the bedroom of Anne Frank. I am also a fan of minimalism and leading a simple life.

Apps can help us

A well designed app can make your life better. I love the eBay app now that they’ve improved it so you can upload articles to sell from your phone. I also love the Daily Mail’s app – if you love celebs and fashion and scathing English headlines – download the app, it’s one of the best free news apps I’ve come across.

And now onto the WORST app ever created in the world

Congratulations to McDonald’s Australia for the shitty “Track My Maccas” app (McDonald’s is nicknamed ‘Maccas’ by most Aussies, because we find saying more than two syllables challenging some days). Luckily if you don’t live in Australia, you will never have to see, try, or deal with this pathetic excuse for an app. But perhaps you’d like to read my rant anyway.

Here comes my rant

Now, I have said before that I am a huge fan of McDonalds, even though I am vegan/vegetarian. Why? I personally think the company is one of the more responsible companies when it comes to providing nutritional information for their customers, and I have blogged about this before.

So that’s why I wanted to download the McDonalds app – because I wanted to easily access nutritional information from my phone. Sounds pretty obvious, eh?

Not only did I have to pay for TrackMyMacca’s, I have still been unable to use it. And here’s the clincher – IT DOESN’T GIVE ME ANY NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION AT ALL!

Fail, Maccas, FAIL.

Whew. Sorry. I got a bit excited then. I feel very passionate about this. So, if the stupid app doesn’t give me nutritional information – then what does it do?

They say:

“TrackMyMacca’s’ works with food that comes in specially marked boxes, including the McChicken burger, Big Mac, Filet-O-Fish, and Chicken McNuggets. It uses your phone’s GPS to find out what restaurant you’re in, image recognition to see what you’re eating, and the date and time to track the exact ingredients that went into your food. This then turns the tables into a ‘farm’ and allows you to learn about the food.”

Sorry, what?

Why the hell would I want to do that?

Thinly-veiled marketing messages

To think that their consumers are interested in their thinly-veiled marketing messages about how sustainable their food and farming practices are is completely insulting. If you want to tell us how much you value Australian farmers, put that waffle on your website and let me ignore it there. A virtual farm? Do I get to see you virtually slaughtering the cattle and mincing their eyelids into Sausage McMuffin patties? Didn’t think so.  Spare me the spin.

Only works for a small and bizarre range of products

OK, so I can only “Track my Maccas” with these purchased items: McChicken burger, Big Mac, Filet-O-Fish, Chicken McNuggets and large/medium chips. The stupid app won’t even work with small chips.

The app only works inside a McDonalds store

Yes, you physically have to be in-store to use it, with your purchased food in front of you to scan with your device and by then – you’re already eating the damn food, so why would you care where it’s come from? Your purchase has been made. Yes, there is a trail setting, but the damn thing keeps crashing, so even this won’t work. Other users have reported the same thing.

Provides no nutritional information

Is this food halal? Can I eat this if I’m vegan? How much sodium is in my McMuffin? How many calories are in a thickshake? What’s the size difference between a small and large sundae? These and many more questions will never be answered by TrackMyMaccas.

No spaces between the words

Ok, it’s a small point but I am getting sick of the trend of companies removing the spaces between words. You know what I mean – the company I work for is called MyCompany not My Company. A website I consult a lot for work is called PayScale not Pay Scale, and this stupid app is called TrackMyMaccas, not Track My Stupid Maccas. I can tell you (in my opinion as a professional copywriter) that spaces between words help people to read the words.

YouknowwhatImean?It’sreallyprettybloodyobvious!

Downloading crap apps makes me irrationally angry!

Pfft. Utter waste of time. But what insults me more is that the company is obviously proud of this useless and pathetic piece of gadgetry.

I may never know how it works, because I don’t eat the food items listed, except for the chips, which are vegan (depending on how strict you are). Plus I never buy the large chips anyway, because a large serving of chips is 500 calories, and I’d rather eat two cheeseburgers for that.

Maccas, I love you and you have failed me. Please go back and make an app that gives the customer the information they REALLY want – the nutritional information in their food, and perhaps where the restaurants are located. That’s all we want to know.

Please tell me – what crap aps have you downloaded? Are they worse than this?

Photos by Jakalito