"Putting lipstick on a pig" is another way to say that something is superficially made to appear better but the basic nature of the "thing", whether it be a computer app or government policy, for example, has remained unchanged.
The expression has been used most famously by the US President, Barrack Obama, during his campaign against John McCain who chose former Alaskan Governor, Sarah Palin, as his running mate for Vice President. The story and more history of the term appear in this article from "The Guardian" website:
Who coined the phrase 'lipstick on a pig'?
When Barack Obama described John McCain's campaign message of change
as "lipstick on a pig" it ignited a flurry of recrimination from the
Republican camp. It was claimed he was insulting Republican
vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin. By saying: "You can put
lipstick on a pig - it's still a pig", Obama's team say he was simply
describing McCain's effort to rebrand himself.
The phrase is a relatively new colloquialism with a old provenance in
the English language. The first printed reference to someone dolling
up swine occurred more than 30 years ago, but other iterations go back
centuries, according to lexicographer Grant Barrett, of the American
Dialect Society. The phrase first appears in print in 1985, when
the Washington Post quoted a San Francisco radio host describing a
proposal to renovate the city's sports stadium. In 1980, a Washington
state newspaper wrote: "You can clean up a pig, put a ribbon on it's
[sic] tail, spray it with perfume, but it is still a pig."
"It's probably older than that," Barrett said. "It was probably oral
long before it was in print. But the whole idea of gussying up a pig
is much older."
