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How to get 4 to 5 stars on the App Store

amro.co

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Re: How to get 4 to 5 stars on the App Store

#21

Post by aneth »

For CribQ (housing maps from Craigslist) we prompt for ratings. It sucks to bug users but it also sucks to build a great product and not have people find it. To the people complaining about the experience, think of the experience of the developer to balance that feeling out.

We've also had issues with what seem to be targetted 1 star ratings with no reviews. Every new version that comes out we instantly get a bunch of these, and I have suspicions about who they come from. Almost all written reviews are 4 or 5 stars.

Re: How to get 4 to 5 stars on the App Store

#22

Post by awolf »

We saw a huge boost in number of reviews, overall rating, and sales when we started to solicit users in TapTyping (went from 3.5 to 4.5 stars). We made sure to only ask people once they had typed 2300 characters which equates to 3-4 speed tests or 1.5 typing lessons. Obviously the solicitation critera will be different for every app.

Not sure why you need a 3rd party library to do this though, it's pretty straight forward.

Re: How to get 4 to 5 stars on the App Store

#23

Post by khairulzaman »

aneth wrote: post #21

For CribQ (housing maps from Craigslist) we prompt for ratings. It sucks to bug users but it also sucks to build a great product and not have people find it. To the people complaining about the experience, think of the experience of the developer to balance that feeling out. We've also had issues with what seem to be targetted 1 star ratings with no reviews. Every new version that comes out we instantly get a bunch o…

Have you looked into iOS 3 users? If I'm not mistaken, in iOS 3, deleting an app prompts the user to rate the app and if your update borks the app for them, they're probably going to delete and rate it one star.

Re: How to get 4 to 5 stars on the App Store

#24

Post by latitude »

I am using similar idea in one of my Windows apps -- it has a one-time notification that prompts the user to join a mailing list or subscribe to the Twitter feed [1]. After much experimenting I have converged to the following criteria:

  The app has been up for at least 5 minutes 
	&&
  It was first run at least 7 days ago
	&&
  It (executed primary function) no more than 12 hours ago
	&&
  It (executed primary function) at least 3 times
	&&
  There was some user activity in last 60 seconds
The app is of a service nature, it runs in a background, so some conditions are unique to that, but the general idea is the same - talk to users that are engaged and happy rather than to all of them. Seems to be working really well so far.

[1] http://bvckup.com/tmp/notification.png

Re: How to get 4 to 5 stars on the App Store

#25

Post by eps »

weixiyen wrote: post #16
16s wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the app is useful to you and it is free and not inundating you with ads, a positive review is the least you could do in return. It seems reasonable.

Unfortunately, it doesn't change the fact that users hate it.

The question is if they hate this enough to actually go and rate the app, but give it a negative review. And I don't think they do. Those who are ticked off would simply not bother rating, so no harm done by asking.

Re: How to get 4 to 5 stars on the App Store

#26

Post by metachris »

latitude wrote: post #24

I am using similar idea in one of my Windows apps -- it has a one-time notification that prompts the user to join a mailing list or subscribe to the Twitter feed [1]. After much experimenting I have converged to the following criteria: The app has been up for at least 5 minutes && It was first run at least 7 days ago && It (executed primary function) no more than 12 hours ago && It (executed primary function) at leas…

Appirater (the lib mentioned in the post) does it like this:

"every time the user launches your app, Appirater will see if they’ve used the app for 30 days and launched it at least 15 times. If they have, they’ll be asked to rate the app, and then be taken to your app’s review page in the App Store. If you release a new version of your app, Appirater will again wait until the new version has been used 15 times for 30 days and then prompt the user again for another review. Optionally, you can adjust the days to wait and the launch number by changing DAYS_UNTIL_PROMPT and LAUNCHES_UNTIL_PROMPT in Appirater.h."

Tweaking those two settings lets you target any selection of engaged users (eg. 15 launches in 30 days will reach primarily very engaged users).

Re: How to get 4 to 5 stars on the App Store

#27

Post by extension »

statictype wrote: post #13

The best way to get feedback from users would be for Apple to provide, as part of the iOS API, a widget that lets you do the rating right there in the app itself. When prompted 'Would you like to rate this app?', if you choose 'Yes', show a ratings widget and comment box right there in the dialog without booting you to the App Store.

The ratings are probably more meaningful for requiring that users go out of their way to rate. Make it too routine and the courtesy fours drown out the users with strong opinions.

Edit for the downvoters: this is me speculating on how the ratings work in practice. Whether the system is fair or serves your own interests are both seperate issues.

Re: How to get 4 to 5 stars on the App Store

#28

Post by andrewmlevy »

statictype wrote: post #13

The best way to get feedback from users would be for Apple to provide, as part of the iOS API, a widget that lets you do the rating right there in the app itself. When prompted 'Would you like to rate this app?', if you choose 'Yes', show a ratings widget and comment box right there in the dialog without booting you to the App Store.

You should check out my startup http://www.crittercism.com Its like Uservoice but for mobile apps. If a user submits a bug and you fix it the library lets you prompt affected users to leave a good review.

Re: How to get 4 to 5 stars on the App Store

#29

Post by statictype »

extension wrote: post #27
statictype wrote: post #13

The best way to get feedback from users would be for Apple to provide, as part of the iOS API, a widget that lets you do the rating right there in the app itself. When prompted 'Would you like to rate this app?', if you choose 'Yes', show a ratings widget and comment box right there in the dialog without booting you to the App Store.

The ratings are probably more meaningful for requiring that users go out of their way to rate. Make it too routine and the courtesy fours drown out the users with strong opinions. Edit for the downvoters: this is me speculating on how the ratings work in practice. Whether the system is fair or serves your own interests are both seperate issues.

I disagree. There have been several times when the 'Rate this app' modal box came up and I wanted to give a good rating for it but couldn't be bothered because it sent me out to the AppStore when what I really wanted to be doing was playing that game/using that app.
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