4 ms·

How to get 4 to 5 stars on the App Store

130 points by rkischuk 16y ago

haribilalic 16y ago
I hate when apps request a review like this. It's worse when they ask repeatedly.
- Charuru 16y ago
  What's wrong with clicking no thanks?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- dmpatierno 16y ago
  Appirater defaults to asking only once, and not until two weeks of steady usage. This helps get better reviews since people who use the app a lot tend to like it. In addition, developers have full control over when to display the prompt to avoid interrupting certain tasks.
- yoda_sl 16y ago
  If the developer implement it the right way, choosing 'no thanks' will stop asking for reviewing. In addition if it's implemented the right way it will ask once in a while rather than every time. I have implemented such request to review in different applications in the AppStore but so far the result is pretty mixed: some app got a few extra reviews, but others none with apps being the same quality.
- 16s 16y ago
  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.
  - weixiyen 16y ago
    Unfortunately, it doesn't change the fact that users hate it.
    - eps 16y ago
      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.
timerickson 16y ago
Step 3 is: Don't put obtrusive ads on top of your content every other minute and call it a feature. Ahem #dickbar
gohat 16y ago
Writing from the developers side, this type of functionality is extremely useful. Many products are review driven, and getting reviews is not easy. Reviews tend to fuel traffic and demand especially in the App store context. But as a user, I strongly dislike being spammed. Here, what seems nice is that it waits until 30 days use before asking and only asks once per version, which is good for multiple reasons. (I'd likely personally keep it to once ever though)
marcc 16y ago
Apple has changed the review process to be less biased. Not sure when it was (somewhere around 4.0 launch last year) but they no longer prompt users to rate an app during the uninstall process. I too really dislike being asked to rate an app. Especially since there's never a good time for this. Most of the time I've see this on my phone is when I launch an app for the 5th or 6th time. I launched the app to use it, not to review it. We all hate the bad reviews. But don't start doing this. It's just bad user experience.
- apayan 16y ago
  You can actually control when the prompt occurs in Appirater, with the hope being that the developer will know when to allow the pop up to actually appear. It's not perfect, but it's the best solution I could think up given the constraints of the App Store.
solipsist 16y ago
Any reason why the "TO" in the title is capitalized?
- rkischuk 16y ago
  No reason. Thanks for pointing it out. Fixed.
statictype 16y ago
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.
- extension 16y ago
  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.
  - statictype 16y ago
    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.
    - extension 16y ago
      Look at it from Apple's perspective. They want at least some great apps to float to the top and terrible apps to be tarred and feathered, while bothering users as little as possible. They don't particularly care about giving every app an accurate rating or capturing every user's opinion. Thus, they don't have much reason to push users to rate more apps.
- andrewmlevy 16y ago
  You should check out my startup http://www.crittercism.com 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.
siglesias 16y ago
Another thing that should be mentioned is timing. I noticed that Cut the Rope put in a request right at the end of the first group of levels, and to boot, they made the final level of the group really easy to get you feeling smart and euphoric. Sure, 5 stars! While I'm not sure what the "euphoric moment" will be in my app, it's very wise to time your reminders to be placed in strategic areas associated with positive emotion: the end of a task, a major completion.
a1k0n 16y ago
I couldn't help but parse that as "App pirater" and was thoroughly confused as to how that would help your sales.
- vertr 16y ago
  I must admit, I didn't understand the name of the app either.
- lwhi 16y ago
  Either that or App-irat(e)or - which is ironic considering the aim to get good rating.
- apayan 16y ago
  When I was thinking up a name for it, I was trying to be witty and have something along the lines of iRate, which led me to 'App i rate'. Then I added 'er' at the end to make it flow (or so I thought). As you've noted it's not the greatest name out there, but I didn't want to change it after all the linking and discussion that had already occurred based on the blog post.
rookie 16y ago
I also had awesome results from asking for reviews using appirater. I have mine set for 20 days and 20 uses. (They will not be asked to review until they have been using it for at least 20 days and have used the app at least 20 times) I now have over 50 reviews for the current version with a 4-5 star average. http://itunes.apple.com/ee/app/icross-wod-free/id397702723?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/ee/app/icross-wod-free/id397702723?m...
hung 16y ago
I've implemented something similar on my apps, and I have to say, it works. Most users (including myself) simply won't give a good review unsolicited. If the request pops up and they like the app, it won't be that much of a nuisance (they can make it go away forever). The trick is getting the timing right. Wait long enough that they've used it a few times and have actually had a chance to form an opinion. Otherwise it's just annoying.
aneth 16y ago
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.
- khairulzaman 16y ago
  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.
awolf 16y ago
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.
latitude 16y ago
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 http://bvckup.com/tmp/notification.png
- metachris 16y ago
  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).
metachris 16y ago
Here is a simple Android implementation: http://www.androidsnippets.com/prompt-engaged-users-to-rate-your-app-in-the-android-market-appirater http://www.androidsnippets.com/prompt-engaged-users-to-rate-...
thirdsun 16y ago
I'm often very surprised by the amount of bad reviews users provide just because of minor issues or unrealistic user expectations. Developers have no chance to explain those, often unnecessary, reviews. Of course you have the usual reviewers that couldn't be bothered to rate anything unless they have a problem with the app, but additionally there's such an amount of ignorance that one feels like reading youtube comments. Right now the official twitter app is being downrated into oblivion here in germany (1,5 stars) due to the introduction of that trend bar. From one of the best twitter clients to One and a half star. Really? You don't have to like that bar and most people certainly don't but does it affect your twitter experience in such a bad way that those one star ratings are justified. I doubt it. That said, app reviews seem to be used as kind of punishment by users instead of providing helpful feedback. Therefor i can see that asking users who frequently use your app to rate it makes a lot of sense from a developers perspective. Additionally those developers should have the option to provide highlighted answers to reviews or weigh in on unjustified user statements.
jzting 16y ago
I recently added Appirater in an update to one of my apps and I believe has really helped gather positive reviews. Getting the timing right is a bit tricky - I've opted to prompt the user after ten uses at a point where interaction with the app won't be obstructed by the alert. As a side note, I think that the alerts should be shown only once. I was using another app that would prompt every other time to rate and the default dismiss button was "Remind me later"...very annoying.
xmr 16y ago
So true. I added code to ask regular users to rate the app and received a lot of 4/5 star reviews. Ask happy customers and they'll willingly give your app a good rating.
Huppie 16y ago
Appirater looks like a great tool to get good reviews. Inspired by this blogpost (and because I don't make iOS apps) I decided to create an Android port for it this morning as a gift to myself and HN of course ;-) Feedback is greatly appreciated. https://github.com/Huppie/Appirater-for-Android https://github.com/Huppie/Appirater-for-Android
kahawe 16y ago
I remember a friend of mine was invited to write a chapter for a Java book for a very popular, very successful and prestigious publisher; the book wasn't even out yet but had a page on amazon and they made him ask all his friends and family to write a positive and "believable" review like "it is an excellent introduction to blablabla, this and that thing could be better/more detailed but overall best book ever!!!111" They justified that by "well, yea those are sort of fake review but everyone does it so it is ok"

130 points by rkischuk 16y ago

haribilalic 16y ago

I hate when apps request a review like this. It's worse when they ask repeatedly.

Charuru 16y ago
What's wrong with clicking no thanks?
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
dmpatierno 16y ago
Appirater defaults to asking only once, and not until two weeks of steady usage. This helps get better reviews since people who use the app a lot tend to like it. In addition, developers have full control over when to display the prompt to avoid interrupting certain tasks.
yoda_sl 16y ago
If the developer implement it the right way, choosing 'no thanks' will stop asking for reviewing. In addition if it's implemented the right way it will ask once in a while rather than every time. I have implemented such request to review in different applications in the AppStore but so far the result is pretty mixed: some app got a few extra reviews, but others none with apps being the same quality.
16s 16y ago
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.
- weixiyen 16y ago
  Unfortunately, it doesn't change the fact that users hate it.
  - eps 16y ago
    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.

timerickson 16y ago

Step 3 is: Don't put obtrusive ads on top of your content every other minute and call it a feature. Ahem #dickbar

gohat 16y ago

Writing from the developers side, this type of functionality is extremely useful. Many products are review driven, and getting reviews is not easy. Reviews tend to fuel traffic and demand especially in the App store context. But as a user, I strongly dislike being spammed. Here, what seems nice is that it waits until 30 days use before asking and only asks once per version, which is good for multiple reasons. (I'd likely personally keep it to once ever though)

marcc 16y ago

Apple has changed the review process to be less biased. Not sure when it was (somewhere around 4.0 launch last year) but they no longer prompt users to rate an app during the uninstall process. I too really dislike being asked to rate an app. Especially since there's never a good time for this. Most of the time I've see this on my phone is when I launch an app for the 5th or 6th time. I launched the app to use it, not to review it. We all hate the bad reviews. But don't start doing this. It's just bad user experience.

apayan 16y ago
You can actually control when the prompt occurs in Appirater, with the hope being that the developer will know when to allow the pop up to actually appear. It's not perfect, but it's the best solution I could think up given the constraints of the App Store.

solipsist 16y ago

Any reason why the "TO" in the title is capitalized?

rkischuk 16y ago
No reason. Thanks for pointing it out. Fixed.

statictype 16y ago

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.

extension 16y ago
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.
- statictype 16y ago
  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.
  - extension 16y ago
    Look at it from Apple's perspective. They want at least some great apps to float to the top and terrible apps to be tarred and feathered, while bothering users as little as possible. They don't particularly care about giving every app an accurate rating or capturing every user's opinion. Thus, they don't have much reason to push users to rate more apps.
andrewmlevy 16y ago
You should check out my startup http://www.crittercism.com 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.

siglesias 16y ago

Another thing that should be mentioned is timing. I noticed that Cut the Rope put in a request right at the end of the first group of levels, and to boot, they made the final level of the group really easy to get you feeling smart and euphoric. Sure, 5 stars! While I'm not sure what the "euphoric moment" will be in my app, it's very wise to time your reminders to be placed in strategic areas associated with positive emotion: the end of a task, a major completion.

a1k0n 16y ago

I couldn't help but parse that as "App pirater" and was thoroughly confused as to how that would help your sales.

vertr 16y ago
I must admit, I didn't understand the name of the app either.
lwhi 16y ago
Either that or App-irat(e)or - which is ironic considering the aim to get good rating.
apayan 16y ago
When I was thinking up a name for it, I was trying to be witty and have something along the lines of iRate, which led me to 'App i rate'. Then I added 'er' at the end to make it flow (or so I thought). As you've noted it's not the greatest name out there, but I didn't want to change it after all the linking and discussion that had already occurred based on the blog post.

rookie 16y ago

I also had awesome results from asking for reviews using appirater. I have mine set for 20 days and 20 uses. (They will not be asked to review until they have been using it for at least 20 days and have used the app at least 20 times) I now have over 50 reviews for the current version with a 4-5 star average. http://itunes.apple.com/ee/app/icross-wod-free/id397702723?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/ee/app/icross-wod-free/id397702723?m...

hung 16y ago

I've implemented something similar on my apps, and I have to say, it works. Most users (including myself) simply won't give a good review unsolicited. If the request pops up and they like the app, it won't be that much of a nuisance (they can make it go away forever). The trick is getting the timing right. Wait long enough that they've used it a few times and have actually had a chance to form an opinion. Otherwise it's just annoying.

aneth 16y ago

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.

khairulzaman 16y ago
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.

awolf 16y ago

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.

latitude 16y ago

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 http://bvckup.com/tmp/notification.png

metachris 16y ago
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).

metachris 16y ago

Here is a simple Android implementation: http://www.androidsnippets.com/prompt-engaged-users-to-rate-your-app-in-the-android-market-appirater http://www.androidsnippets.com/prompt-engaged-users-to-rate-...

thirdsun 16y ago

I'm often very surprised by the amount of bad reviews users provide just because of minor issues or unrealistic user expectations. Developers have no chance to explain those, often unnecessary, reviews. Of course you have the usual reviewers that couldn't be bothered to rate anything unless they have a problem with the app, but additionally there's such an amount of ignorance that one feels like reading youtube comments. Right now the official twitter app is being downrated into oblivion here in germany (1,5 stars) due to the introduction of that trend bar. From one of the best twitter clients to One and a half star. Really? You don't have to like that bar and most people certainly don't but does it affect your twitter experience in such a bad way that those one star ratings are justified. I doubt it. That said, app reviews seem to be used as kind of punishment by users instead of providing helpful feedback. Therefor i can see that asking users who frequently use your app to rate it makes a lot of sense from a developers perspective. Additionally those developers should have the option to provide highlighted answers to reviews or weigh in on unjustified user statements.

jzting 16y ago

I recently added Appirater in an update to one of my apps and I believe has really helped gather positive reviews. Getting the timing right is a bit tricky - I've opted to prompt the user after ten uses at a point where interaction with the app won't be obstructed by the alert. As a side note, I think that the alerts should be shown only once. I was using another app that would prompt every other time to rate and the default dismiss button was "Remind me later"...very annoying.

xmr 16y ago

So true. I added code to ask regular users to rate the app and received a lot of 4/5 star reviews. Ask happy customers and they'll willingly give your app a good rating.

Huppie 16y ago

Appirater looks like a great tool to get good reviews. Inspired by this blogpost (and because I don't make iOS apps) I decided to create an Android port for it this morning as a gift to myself and HN of course ;-) Feedback is greatly appreciated. https://github.com/Huppie/Appirater-for-Android https://github.com/Huppie/Appirater-for-Android

kahawe 16y ago

I remember a friend of mine was invited to write a chapter for a Java book for a very popular, very successful and prestigious publisher; the book wasn't even out yet but had a page on amazon and they made him ask all his friends and family to write a positive and "believable" review like "it is an excellent introduction to blablabla, this and that thing could be better/more detailed but overall best book ever!!!111" They justified that by "well, yea those are sort of fake review but everyone does it so it is ok"