As an indie developer that has a lot invested in the App Store - this is really, really, great. It doesn't matter how much effort you put into making an app that is polished, well thought out, and one of the best out there - there will always be reviews like 'App gets stuck downloading' or 'App doesn't support x' (when x is clearly stated as being a paid addition). The ability to respond to reviews should more clearly separate 'quality' apps for anyone that takes reviews and ratings into consideration before downloading.
iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews
51–60 of 222 posts
Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please don't give an app a 1 star review just because they ask for a review. Apple and Android have made ratings incredibly important, and the vast majority of happy users never take the time to review. You get some happy users rating, and a disproportionate number of unhappy users. Asking people (at an appropriate time) is the only way to level the field. We've had a few 5.0 releases of our iOS app, but usually a fe…
The people responding to you don't understand that without asking for reviews, your app will just die. Apple needs to stop nuking reviews/stars on every release (give us the option!), then we'd stop asking for reviews.
We understand, we just don't care.
Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I review every app that annoys me with a review popup, and voice my opinion about my most recent memory of the app (the annoying popup, 1 star). Seems like enough people have started doing it that app developers no longger do this that much, at least on Android. There was even an article how to properly beg for reviews. Boils down to: * Do it after you have delighted the user, not during startup. * Do it respectfully…
Please don't give an app a 1 star review just because they ask for a review. Apple and Android have made ratings incredibly important, and the vast majority of happy users never take the time to review. You get some happy users rating, and a disproportionate number of unhappy users. Asking people (at an appropriate time) is the only way to level the field. We've had a few 5.0 releases of our iOS app, but usually a fe…
I've found that many "prompted" reviews are generally of low quality and lack detail, and essentially flood the listing with useless information. (Who cares if there are 500 reviews each saying "Good app!", that tells you basically nothing.)
In 7 years I've never prompted for a review in any of my apps. Users that write reviews do so genuinely, and if they are happy, they often leave extremely detailed feedback explaining why, and that is much more valuable to me.
Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please don't give an app a 1 star review just because they ask for a review. Apple and Android have made ratings incredibly important, and the vast majority of happy users never take the time to review. You get some happy users rating, and a disproportionate number of unhappy users. Asking people (at an appropriate time) is the only way to level the field. We've had a few 5.0 releases of our iOS app, but usually a fe…
> Please don't give an app a 1 star review just because they ask for a review. Perhaps don't pop up things begging for reviews? There doesn't seem to be any way of turning it off ("Disable app review requests") for people, thus these kind of user responses. :/
As mentioned further up, it's brutally difficult without anything like this. The App Store shows ratings for only the current version by default so after you slave over each upgrade, you lose all the great reviews you've carefully collected. Those ratings are critical to your success in an already difficult marketplace.
Almost no one goes out of their way to review your app, so the majority of reviews you'll get are disgruntled people, often with unfair or unrelated issues.
Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews
#55What I was really hoping for is a solution to the problem of every app begging me for a review after upgrading. I get a "please review" popup pretty much every day. When I got back from Christmas vacation and synced a bunch of apps, my iPhone was painful to use for about three days and every app begged for my help. I actually review apps I use and like, I just wish I didn't have to do it every update to help keep the…
Tinder asks you to review it almost every day, even if you already have. I really don't like this, it feels like bullying, or like they're annoying you into leaving a positive review.
Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah I’m pretty sure you’d have to use private APIs to be able to fake reviews using the new controller. They’d probably ban your developer account if you tried this. Don’t think it would be worth it.
They have the ability to run views entirely out of process. I can't guarantee they're doing it here, but I don't think it would be hard for them to make it completely immune even to private API abuse.
It'd be quite logical to do that here, if only to avoid exposing the users account credentials to the application.
Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews
#57What does "currently shipping iOS devices" refer to? People who buy an iPhone on the web store today will have iOS 10.3? I just checked on my iPhone and the latest is 10.2.1.
Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews
#58What does "currently shipping iOS devices" refer to? People who buy an iPhone on the web store today will have iOS 10.3? I just checked on my iPhone and the latest is 10.2.1.
That means it's compatible with all currently shipping iOS devices. iOS 10.3 just entered beta, though, so it'll be a few weeks before it's the shipping, released version.
Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please don't give an app a 1 star review just because they ask for a review. Apple and Android have made ratings incredibly important, and the vast majority of happy users never take the time to review. You get some happy users rating, and a disproportionate number of unhappy users. Asking people (at an appropriate time) is the only way to level the field. We've had a few 5.0 releases of our iOS app, but usually a fe…
The people responding to you don't understand that without asking for reviews, your app will just die. Apple needs to stop nuking reviews/stars on every release (give us the option!), then we'd stop asking for reviews.
The survival of your app is not my concern.
If apple want a vibrant ecosystem of apps then they can make the changes, but as a user it's not my responsibility.
Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please don't give an app a 1 star review just because they ask for a review. Apple and Android have made ratings incredibly important, and the vast majority of happy users never take the time to review. You get some happy users rating, and a disproportionate number of unhappy users. Asking people (at an appropriate time) is the only way to level the field. We've had a few 5.0 releases of our iOS app, but usually a fe…
When an app nags me for a review, it really gets in the way and hinders my usage of it. A bad review is a totally legitimate response to that. If this is your only solution to biased reviews, then you have no solution, you just have a way to move the problem around some. If you don't want silly one-star reviews complaining about the prompt, don't interrupt people when they're trying to get something done.
No one said nag. People seem to be be assuming the worst possible behaviour. Asking once with a "Don't ask again" and "Later" option is pretty standard.
The original post said a popup is annoying enough to deserve a 1-star review. I strongly disagree and if you enjoy free apps, it's one of the few ways to really thank the developer.