Google has already killed a short-lived feature that showed users how many calories they’d burn if they decided to walk somewhere instead of, say, take the bus or drive. Horribly, it also took the extra step (sorry) of notifying you how many mini-cupcakes you’d worked off in the process. It did not, shall we say, go well.
First of all, mini cupcakes? That’s exactly the sort of snack a gaggle of Soylent-chugging gym nerds eternally cloistered in the amniotic sac of a Google conference room would assume we on the outside are shoveling into our maws, taking breaks only to unlock our car doors or use our sticky fingers to order more mini cupcakes. Imagine the high-fives when Steve came up with that one.
But many users were quick to point out that the feature was incredibly stupid, not just for the possible effect it might have on the estimated 30 million people in the U.S. with eating disorders, but for anyone who doesn’t want their fuckin’ iPhone telling them how to live their lives without their consent. (A fun additional fact is that it was impossible to turn the calorie/cupcake counter off.)
In any case, it’s gone now. Google told Buzzfeed that it was a test feature for iPhone users only, and has now been removed due to “strong user feedback.”