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iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

developer.apple.com

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Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

#61

Post by mikeash »

scosman wrote: post #60
mikeash wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We assume the worst behavior because that's what we observe.

If you only ever ask once, don't you lose out the next time you release a new version and all the reviews get reset? The standard seems to be to ask for every new version, which is a major pain in the behind.

Speaking only for myself, I don't one-star any app just for asking once. I only do it to repeat offenders. I'd prefer never to be asked, but if it's just once, it's easier to just dismiss it and get on with things.

Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

#62

Post by jackvalentine »

scosman wrote: post #60
mikeash wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

It is pretty standard, and it turns out that I have more than a hundred apps installed that all do it.

I too routinely give one-star ratings to try and de-incentivise this kind of thing. I'm sorry that you don't seem to have an alternate way of going about getting balanced reviews but I don't have an alternate way of never seeing that popup again.

Edit: Thinking about it further, it's remarkably arrogant to dismiss our complaints as effectively the wrong kind of complaint to put in reviews. That's not something you get to decide.

Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

#63

Post by whyenot »

Ensorceled wrote: post #12

What 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…

One iOS app I used to use (Baytomat) offers to reward you with credits (normally purchased for money) if you write a 5 star review. This seems like it should be a blatant violation of Apple's App Store policies, but there is no easy way for me to even report it to Apple. Very frustrating.

Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

#64

Post by keehun »

Ensorceled wrote: post #12

What 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…

I would leave a lot more reviews if I didn't have to leave the app. If Apple pushes this interface through, I would definitely leave reviews. I don't mind the nagging—as long as I can make it permanently go away per app, and it doesn't nag me once I review.

Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

#65

Post by richardwhiuk »

radley wrote: post #33
taspeotis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Using the SKStoreReviewController API, you can ask users to rate or review your app while they're using it" It sounds like this is the first step to a solution - route applications through this class and then Apple can add a preference to "take no action if nagged for reviews."

According to Gruber / Apple it's a max of three prompts per year, regardless of version. https://twitter.com/gruber/status/824022727870861316 [UPDATE] There's also an App Store setting so you can disable requests: https://youtu.be/_qA5p9dQGas?t=2m40s

Trivially avoidable by having an App based prompt instead of directly calling into the AppStore UX.

Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

#66

Post by richardwhiuk »

kcase wrote: post #48
dirtae wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your plan when you release the next major version of OmniGraffle? You will create a whole new App Store listing for it? Or you'll somehow have a single listing for OmniGraffle on the App Store, and people who have purchased v7 but not v8 will be able to unlock v7 but not v8 within the app? The latter sounds like an unholy mess, the former is very annoying as a developer, since you lose all of your reviews and…

Yes, we'll create a whole new App Store listing for it, just as OmniGraffle 5, 6, and 7 have each had their own listing. I agree that it's sad to lose all our previous reviews, especially as our earlier apps had very high average ratings. But the bigger issue is combating confusion, which leads to bad ratings when people miss a feature that the app actually has, or are confused when a "free" app actually costs money.…

The problem with this approach is that it's impossible to provide discounts to users who had the previous version, which is a long standarding practice (and a valuable one).

Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

#67

Post by ajmurmann »

prawn wrote: post #54
justinclift wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I understand that that is a bad position for developers to be in, but is that the user's problem? Also assuming users showing this behaviour are evenly distributed across apps, didn't this end up not mattering?

Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

#68

Post by Ensorceled »

keehun wrote: post #64
Ensorceled wrote: post #12

What 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…

I would leave a lot more reviews if I didn't have to leave the app. If Apple pushes this interface through, I would definitely leave reviews. I don't mind the nagging—as long as I can make it permanently go away per app, and it doesn't nag me once I review.

And especially if I don't have to enter my 32 character apple password every time ...

Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

#69

Post by Jaepa »

prawn wrote: post #54
justinclift wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Preverse actions aren't a good response to preserve incentives, though it is often required. The same argument is used to auto playing to take over ads. You can't blame content makers who can't continue unless they add more aggressive ads any more than you can blame the users from installing ad blockers.

Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

#70

Post by [deleted] »

jackvalentine wrote: post #62
scosman wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. It is pretty standard, and it turns out that I have more than a hundred apps installed that all do it. I too routinely give one-star ratings to try and de-incentivise this kind of thing. I'm sorry that you don't seem to have an alternate way of going about getting…

[deleted]
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