Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

developer.apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 222 posts

Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

#141

Post by homakov »

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…

Easy to fix

1) prohibit popups asking for review

2) show ratings inside of app store and only after iOS knows you used this app for a while

3) stop asking for damn password every time and requiring review "title". This will make it easier

Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

#142

Post by homakov »

tehno wrote: post #124
kagamine wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm tied to the Norwegian app store by bank card. Norway has a small population resulting in the majority of apps having the "we don't have enough reviews for this app" and no review data at all. Instead of showing reviews from another country, or overall from all countries, Apple choose no data at all. Really useful.

Same for Estonia, I don't think I've ever seen a review on Estonian iTunes app store. Not a single one.

Wow, never thought of that. Someone must create an alternative web app store that we can browse with aggregated ratings

Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

#143

Post by tonyedgecombe »

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…

If they do that just give them a negative review for doing so. If enough of us do that the problem would soon be solved.

Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

#144

Post by jclardy »

jackvalentine wrote: post #110
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What's your preferred user response to the practice of seemingly every single app begging for reviews? An actual, actionable response. Complain to Apple for having a broken system, but don't hurt the developers of the very apps you're F-ing using. As OP said above, Apple could fix this issue. Maybe weight recent reviews more, but don't just wipe the history for every upgrade. The profound sense of entitlement that u…

> that you're using for free Rude assumption. I always, as a matter of principle, buy the "remove ads" IAP if I use an app regularly. Even if I didn't it wasn't my choice to charge nothing for the app. That's on the developer. Apple doesn't owe you a living, I don't owe you a living. The state of the app store has been known for years now and you've had a long time to decline to participate. Your problems with Apple…

They are user problems in a way, but indirectly. Without user reviews new apps are buried even when searched with exact names. So the exact app you need for a niche task will never be found in the first place.

The only real solution is for Apple/Google to not wipe the slate every app update. You have to see the user benefit to that - apple right now literally has a direct disincentive to updating an app.

Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

#145

Post by jclardy »

jackvalentine wrote: post #110
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What's your preferred user response to the practice of seemingly every single app begging for reviews? An actual, actionable response. Complain to Apple for having a broken system, but don't hurt the developers of the very apps you're F-ing using. As OP said above, Apple could fix this issue. Maybe weight recent reviews more, but don't just wipe the history for every upgrade. The profound sense of entitlement that u…

> that you're using for free Rude assumption. I always, as a matter of principle, buy the "remove ads" IAP if I use an app regularly. Even if I didn't it wasn't my choice to charge nothing for the app. That's on the developer. Apple doesn't owe you a living, I don't owe you a living. The state of the app store has been known for years now and you've had a long time to decline to participate. Your problems with Apple…

They are user problems in a way, but indirectly. Without user reviews new apps are buried even when searched with exact names. So the exact app you need for a niche task will never be found in the first place.

The only real solution is for Apple/Google to not wipe the slate every app update. You have to see the user benefit to that - apple right now literally has a direct disincentive to updating an app.

Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

#146

Post by iaml »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #101
scosman wrote: post #26

Earlier 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…

>Secondly, the 3rd items you list is actually a dark pattern. If you are going to ask users to review, let them be honest. Directing 5 stars to app store and 4 or fewer to an internal system is gaming the system. Sorry, but that particular pattern is 100% appropriate, IMO. * If someone has a problem with my app, I absolutely don't want to send them to the reviews where they'll post a "tech support review". Yes Apple…

Thing is, by doing this you are not encouraging users to give your app a fair review and write what they truly think of it. Instead, you want to filter those to only positives, and that is indeed gaming the system, you quite frankly want to have a cake and eat it too.

Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

#147

Post by jacobush »

anotherturn wrote: post #133
epaga wrote: post #102

As a small indie dev (dealing with hundreds or thousands, not hundreds of thousands of customers), the best way I've found to encourage reviews is to prominently display my email address for any questions or ideas. Then, when customers write (many of them do), I write back a nice response and then add: P.S. If you enjoy Mindscope, would you take a minute to write a short review? It would mean a lot and helps give Min…

I've done a similar thing, but getting people to review is like pulling teeth. We've tried plenty ways to make this happen: 1. append a footer in the email asking for a review Finding: People ignore it. 2. include custom copy in the emails asking for a review People say yes yes, and then most do nothing. 3. The annoying rate us with stars popup and redirect to appstore. People rate 5 stars inapp, and then close down…

Don't you have to be logged in to the app store to review? I think many children (and some adults surely can't be arsed to log in, too) are logged out by default.

Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

#148

Post by vbezhenar »

anotherturn wrote: post #133
epaga wrote: post #102

As a small indie dev (dealing with hundreds or thousands, not hundreds of thousands of customers), the best way I've found to encourage reviews is to prominently display my email address for any questions or ideas. Then, when customers write (many of them do), I write back a nice response and then add: P.S. If you enjoy Mindscope, would you take a minute to write a short review? It would mean a lot and helps give Min…

I've done a similar thing, but getting people to review is like pulling teeth. We've tried plenty ways to make this happen: 1. append a footer in the email asking for a review Finding: People ignore it. 2. include custom copy in the emails asking for a review People say yes yes, and then most do nothing. 3. The annoying rate us with stars popup and redirect to appstore. People rate 5 stars inapp, and then close down…

I'm not sure about newer phones, but with iPhone 4S it took so much time to load appstore, that I'm usually giving up. AppStore is very slow application, it feels like bad website on 2G connection and I don't understand that.

Re: iOS and MacOS Developers Can Now Respond to Reviews

#150

Post by jackvalentine »

jclardy wrote: post #144
jackvalentine wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that you're using for free Rude assumption. I always, as a matter of principle, buy the "remove ads" IAP if I use an app regularly. Even if I didn't it wasn't my choice to charge nothing for the app. That's on the developer. Apple doesn't owe you a living, I don't owe you a living. The state of the app store has been known for years now and you've had a long time to decline to participate. Your problems with Apple…

They are user problems in a way, but indirectly. Without user reviews new apps are buried even when searched with exact names. So the exact app you need for a niche task will never be found in the first place. The only real solution is for Apple/Google to not wipe the slate every app update. You have to see the user benefit to that - apple right now literally has a direct disincentive to updating an app.

> They are user problems in a way, but indirectly. Without user reviews new apps are buried even when searched with exact names. So the exact app you need for a niche task will never be found in the first place.

So as a user my problem with Apple is that search is crappy. Is this best fixed by the search being improved or app developers begging for reviews?

I'm sympathetic to developers for the problems of discoverability and customer support and think Apple could probably do a lot better for them. But by the same token I completely reject having it pushed back on to me via the annoying review popup every damn time I update something. I'll continue to express my displeasure with one-star reviews.

> The only real solution is for Apple/Google to not wipe the slate every app update.

As I understand it Google don't wipe reviews between versions, and this is still a problem.

Post reply on HN