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Comment by ajsnigrutin | Hacker News Reader

It's funny how mcdonalds did everything in their power to make it almost impossible to run their mcdonalds app on a rooted phone, but their backend infrastructure is beyond broken (security wise)

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The McDonalds consumer-facing app is quite possibly the worst app from a major company I've ever encountered. It's shockingly bad.

The UI is atrocious.

I do computers for a living and can barely navigate and figure out what’s going on.

I noticed it freezes up on me sometimes when I open it. I assume something is blocking instead of being asynchronous when it pings their servers, but instead of waiting to dismiss a loading screen it just shows the full app and like freezes.

My guess is that they’ve got a million feature flags and a/b test variations going on because it’s just so tempting to “growth hack” in an app like that.

It can be confusing for new or infrequent users.

I use it once a week and I don't find it annoying at all, except for the bug where it will let you complete an order for an airport McDonald's, and then soon after automatically cancel the order.

It’s not a matter of familiarity.

I can place an order in the Chick-fil-A app in about 10-20 seconds. Quick and easy.

A similar order in the McDonalds app throws up ads, unskippable animations in time sensitive spots, unresponsive or jumpy UI elements, popup alerts several times, unnecessary steps (like how the fries category has one item, but it still shows you the list view), etc.

I’ve wound up parked in the lot cursing at the app a number of times as I tap through obstacles.

Oh yeah, 100% agree with all those points, especially the UI jank. But I've used it enough that it's predictable. So I just wait between each tap, without consciously realising I'm doing it.

Why does one even need an app for a fast food restaurant?

1. You can exchange privacy for 20% off.

2. Many franchises have a crummy PA system, so you can avoid this if you plan on using the drive-through.

3. Customization. It's very tedious for all involved to repeatedly request "no cheese", "no ice", "extra sauce", etc. for a very large (e.g., $100+) order.

#3 is key for us. My kids like a plain burger. Order via a human and there’s a 50/50 chance it gets pickles and sauce anyways, so you have to run in and get a remake.

Never happens with apps.

I don't eat that junk but my understanding is McDonald's have segmented their customers into two groups:

1) People who just want to eat McDonald's now and don't care about apps. They will put up with the normal prices which are quite high now.

2) Cheapskate people who wouldn't go to McDonald's much due to the pricing, but can be enticed to go through deals in the app they are happy to jump through hoops to get.

Not McDonalds. But it is nice to browse options, make order list with whatever special selections like no onions, and just pay on phone for whole thing. Often being able to make the order when you are on the way and then pick it up soon after arriving.

Btw, I wondered why they flight root on the phone at all?

I have no idea... maybe they store their "coupons" locally and are afraid you'll clone them? Don't know, I eat there twice a year and it's not worth it :)

suhide in magisk makes my banking app work, but not mcdonalds :)

My theory is they store payment information on the mobile app. The app connects to the store wifi automatically, even when going through the drive thru. And processes the payment then. I theorized it so they don’t store credit card info on their servers, simplifying their PCI audits. Presumably they think all that is better than preventing the app from running on rooted phones.

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