Cry Translator-style apps for Android work about as well, potentially steal info
I wrote a bit about Cry Translator for iDevices and how it looks like it’s a pretty huge scam s couple of weeks back (I still invite someone to show that it works,) and at 5am one random Saturday night/Sunday morning I looked at some Cry Translator-style applications for Android.
Cry Baby Analyzer – Baby Sound
The first of these applications is the Cry Baby analyzer – Baby Sound by Jeycorp. With an average rating on the Play store of 2 out of 5 after 20 reviews, and no positive written reviews, this $2.49 application claims to record and analyze and translate the cries.
The application is referred to as Baby Sound in one picture, Baby Egg in another, which generally indicates a name change to attempt to cover the tracks, or in this case it’s entirely possible it’s because the translation is just so darn bad. The developer name also seems to be Jeycorp in one area, and AFRODESIGNCOKR in another. Er, year… getting more fishy.
So with 0 positive written reviews, 2 developer names, 2 product names, I’m going to say it looks like a scam designed to prey on parents who are exhausted. And with thousands of downloads at that price, they’ve done a good job at it.
BabyCryAnalyzer
Coming in at $1.40 with a whopping 1.3 out of 5 stars on Google Play is BabyCryAnalyzer. Same deal as above except only seems to have one name, and has not been updated since 2010.
Translator Crying Baby
Hooking in on the keywords for people looking for Cry Translator we have Translator Crying Baby. First published on April 18th 2013, it’s badly translated description seems to indicate it does the same thing as Cry Translator.
It also asks for permissions to get your phone number, full internet access, full GPS access to know where you’re at when using it and allows the application to use the camera at any time without your confirmation.
Why would you need any of this for an application that records and analyzes audio. GPS, phone number, why the hell does an app need to know this? These permissions seem to be the setup for some kidnapping movie as they’ll know where you are, who you are, your phone number, and that you most likely have a baby.
The developer is also evidently engaged in selling products that simply take you to a website, cheap wallpaper, along with 31 other applications ranging from speed tests to icon packs to keyword spam.
So, another one probably not going to work.
Baby Translate
Baby Translate is free, comes with a 2.1 average rating, which is higher than any of the others mentioned so far, evidently is more of a Magic Eight Ball than anything useful.
Baby translate requires full network access, but looks mostly harmless, if useless.
Wrap up
There don’t appear to be any legitimate applications out there to figure out why your baby is crying.
At the moment the best bet is to just pay attention and attempt to narrow down the main causes: diaper, food, gas, sleep. Scammers want you to blow money on their non-functioning apps counting on you not researching because you have no sleep and a baby screaming in your ear.
Or maybe one of these does work. Who knows. If you’ve got a lead on anything that actually works let me know. I’d rather be wrong than right in this instance.
