It’s been a long, terrible, frustrating day. And I was in the mood to do a snarky review, so I trolled around the app store for all of 30 seconds. That’s how long it took to find the perfect bad app — Mood Finger Scan. Here’s a humdinger, folks. Not only is it completely ridiculous, it has also garnered what I believe to be the most hilarious app store reviews. With a total of 18,986 reviews at the time of writing, there is no shortage of material. Keep reading for some highlights from the app store reviews, plus the usual honest review of the app itself.
Like I said, it was a long day. Fully intending to retain my foul mood, I started giving Mood Finger Scan the once-over. But when I started reading the reviews, I couldn’t help but laugh. Over half of the nearly nineteen thousand reviews are 1-star ratings, and I chuckled, giggled, and chortled my way through a hundred of them. Then I saw that it was copyright ‘Sexy Fun Dating’, and I thought to myself, What a wonderful world.*
How It Works (Or Doesn’t Work)
Step 1: “Scan” your finger. You can tell it’s working because the green laser light says so.
Step 2: Read a short script in order to “help measure your mood”. You’ll encounter such timeless gems as these (like highlights from a Time Life music infomercial):
“She sells sea shells by the sea shore”
“Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo”
“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”
“Peter Piper Sells a peck of pickled peppers”
Step 3: Dismiss the popup ad asking if you want to buy another app
Step 4: Read the scientific analysis. You’re either Relaxed, Sad, Happy, Angry, or Restless.
Step 5: Rinse and repeat.
Step 6: Rate the app in the app store
Is it Stupid? Or genius!
It’s a conundrum for the ages. Is Mood Finger Scan smart enough to know when you’re lying to yourself about your feelings? Maybe it’s a visionary, and knows how you ought to be feeling. In the end, the only thing I know for sure is it will create a genuine mood using your reactions to its analysis. A fact that I find steeped in irony and obnoxiousness.
And to quickly address some of the confusion in the reviews: No, it can’t read your mind. It also can’t use the amount of pressure from your finger against the screen to determine whether you’re angry or not. In fact, there is nothing that this app can actually do besides trigger an emotional response.
App Store Reviewers
Here are some of my favorite excerpts. And I’m not picking on these people. I think they’re perfect – the mispelled/auto-corrected, punctuation-phobic, and hopelessly naive ones too. You can’t get a better cross-section of the population than in the app store.
For full effect, you need to put yourself in the right frame of mind – and remember the basic concept: It “scans” your finger and tells you how you’re feeling. (Misspellings have been preserved)
“It said restless, than sad (I Was happy, I JUST HAD A CHEESECAKE!!!)”
“Ok so first it said I was in love and I am but then I did it again right after it said I was angry”
My personal favorite!
“Why are people downloading this?! Why have I downloaded this?! +_+
“I faked that somebody broke into my house then my dad ran down stairs and Rammed into the door and smashed the door frame. I then used this “app” and it said I was relaxed, happy, and in love?”
“U don’t know if it’s right! It could be lying to u”
“did all u people actually think that it would scan your mood? retards.”
“My girlfriend liked the fact that it showed me “in love” twice.”
“Buy this app it is the best ever I was happy and i tapped it and it def happy and I tapped it 13 times and all the same answer happy !! 
”
Closing Thoughts on Mood Finger Scan
In case you’re wondering, Mood Finger Scan didn’t get it right. Not once. But it doesn’t matter. In a weird way, Mood Finger Scan was the best thing to happen to me today. Not because I had the worst day of my life, or because it was a good app. But because thousands of people had a strong enough reaction that they too had to voice their thoughts. I salute you, fellow reviewers. You turned my frown upside down.
To the rest of you curious about this app, don’t bother. My original working title for this review was going to be “Mood Finger ScaM”. You’d be better off buying a mood ring or checking horoscopes.
* BONUS!
Did you see that little asterisk up there? That little bit about me thinking, “what a wonderful world” actually happened. You know the song… blue skies? Trees of green? Well, in what I can honestly say was unplanned, and unbelievably serendipitous, I found RuntLaLaLa’s video of Talking Tom singing that very song. Yes, yes. I hate Talking Tom (read my review here), but this was priceless. Maybe you had to be there. Anyway, I leave you with this:
