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Gaming Apple App Store's Review System (View in iTunes - Read Reviews)

51 points by jabo 15y ago

jabo 15y ago
Click on "View in iTunes" and read through the reviews. The app is currently number one under the paid utilities section. I really don't know how they managed to get there. Fake accounts writing reviews? Mechanical Turk? FYI: All the app does is change your wallpaper.
- angryasian 15y ago
  I'm very interested in how these are being gamed as well
mattberg 15y ago
Unfortunately this seems to be a pretty common occurrence. I have seen it quite often in the Entertainment section with apps like X-Ray Scan or Phone Tracker. Not sure why nothing is ever done about it.
cubicle67 15y ago
This one, by the same developer(s?) is far worse http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/id452096746?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/id452096746?mt=8 It's called Flash网页浏览器 and the entire description (in the AU store) is in (chinese?) except for a few words like "Adobe Flash","100%" and "SOUTHPARKSTUDIOS.COM FTW!!!!!" The screenshots appear to depict an iPad viewing a number of flash based sites and playing flash games. Oh, and it's $10.49 Edit: Their description contains a link to a "trial version" at http://hdmediaplus.biz/flash http://hdmediaplus.biz/flash. This redirects to http://www.dailymotion.com/html5 http://www.dailymotion.com/html5 which demos a movie playing using html5
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- cynix 15y ago
  The Chinese description looks like machine translation.
potatolicious 15y ago
I see the $99 developer fee and the closed ecosystem is keeping out the riff raff like it's supposed to...
- cageface 15y ago
  The app store is brimming with crap. The only advantage I can see of Apple's gatekeeping at this point is that Apple seems to be doing a much better job of keeping out malware than Google. That alone might be enough to justify their approach if the growth rate of Android malware doesn't change.
nanijoe 15y ago
I genuinely need someone to please help me understand what the problem is. How is this developer gaming the review system?
- jabo 15y ago
  Answer this: Is it pure coincidence that an equal number of people hate the app and love it so much as to give it a 5 star rating? Oh and EVERY five star rater also recommends the app strongly for others to give it a try. Oh and all the app does us change your lock screen wallpaper.
  - jabo 15y ago
    Here are some interesting comments from the 5 star raters: "Lock screen is an amazing game I love it" - 6 out of 6 customers found this review helpful "Use it everyday" - The app was published on August 04 and this comment was on August 06. "Great app. Love the sync capability. Can't beat the price:-)" - Reminds of those random spam comments I used to get on a blog I maintained. "This is the way it's supposed to be! This is an essentially perfect app. The developers are GREAT too!" "I use this program more than any single other on my iPhone, and IPad. The devs are really responsive and they are totally dedicated to making this the best, most useful app in your arsenal" "The application is wonderful, very nice design, stores all of the information you could possibly want. I really love it and would 100% recommend it." - It's a wallpaper changing app! "This is a great example of what an iPhone app should be! Great work! Definitely work the price. Check out this great app today and you'll love it!" - What a genuine review. Most helpful so far.
- sissym 15y ago
  botnet.
jabo 15y ago
When I first saw it, the app was $1.99. It is now $2.99.
bignoggins 15y ago
Apple recently tried to curb this by preventing reviews from promo codes. Looks like they just Bought the apps outright. These review scam aren't the worst of it. A lot of good reviews won't necessarily mean good sales for your app. I've seen tons of apps with five star reviews languish in the app store. The bigger worry to me is companies like appmagenta which promise a certain ranking using bot downlods.
Cushman 15y ago
You can buy and rate an app through iTunes without actually having a iPhone synced, right? 400 scammy 5-star reviews don't represent 400 iPhones out there, they represent 400 PayPal accounts — shoot, it might even be the same PayPal account — and a bill for $800 less $560 earnings. I just confirmed this by creating a new Apple ID, linking it to my real PayPal which has been linked to a different account in the past, and buying and reviewing a (different, non-scammy) app. (Sorry Apple!) Seems like the quick fix here is to require you to rate apps on the device itself. It would raise the barrier to entry significantly, at least.
- benjaminma 15y ago
  Or a bill of $400... Aug 07 '11 $1.99 -> $2.99 Aug 06 '11 $.99 -> $1.99 Aug 04 '11 New App: $.99 (release) This scam isn't limited to paid apps. There are "marketing" services that promise tens of thousands of downloads of your app on the day of your choosing (obviously, to game the iTunes free rankings). Apparently, another developer is claiming the assets/screenshots used are also stolen by this stand up guy: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lockitize-your-lock-screen/id445198370?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lockitize-your-lock-screen/id...
  - Cushman 15y ago
    Which has 34 5-star reviews, 546 1-star reviews, and none in between. This is pretty ludicrous :P
olivercameron 15y ago
Unfortunately, scams like this aren't new on the App Store. Ever since the App Store has been around there's been seedy apps perpetrating to do things that just aren't possible. You just have to do a search for apps like "location trackers" to see how widespread it is. I saw this particular app in the Top 100 around 2 months ago, and noticed it had an average rating of 1 star, how this has evaded being on Apple's radar for this long is beyond me. Apple has taken a lot of flak for being too stringent and strict with the App Store review process, but this is one area the whole process was designed to fix. This is literally a case of a single guy falsely advertising his app and, by all accounts, having hundreds of thousands people fall for it and pay $1.99 for the privilege of being screwed.
- joshuamerrill 15y ago
  My email just now to the App Store review team: Dear Apple, As an Apple developer and longtime user, I'm proud to recommend Apple products to my friends and family. There is simplicity, thoughtful constraint, and craftsmanship in everything Apple does. That's why I was stunned to see this app--and numerous others from the same developer--in the App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lockify-your-lock-screen-hd/id451287882?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lockify-your-lock-screen-hd/i... I'm surprised this app was approved in the first place. By many accounts, it does absolutely nothing. I cannot count on two hands how many App Store rules this developer is violating. And the App Store review system is obviously being gamed. This developer is earning thousands of hard-earned dollars from Apple customers who trust you to keep garbage out of the App Store. I love Apple. Please don't let the App Store resemble the cheap, neglected morass of the Android Market. Sincerely, Joshua Merrill
  - shaggyfrog 15y ago
    Your e-mail is probably destined for the bitbucket. If you really want to affect change, I'd suggest spreading a link to this to everyone you can. Generally, with problems like this, they only go away after reaching a sufficient level of media exposure. On the other hand, if you're really lucky, someone from Apple is reading this right now and taking care of it :)
zach 15y ago
The current state of the art that I've noticed for App Store review spam is to: 1) Create accounts well ahead of time 2) Use the accounts to give nearly-always-five-star reviews to several highly-rated and frequently-reviewed free apps, such as Angry Birds Free, Instagram, etc. 3) Age the accounts for a while (weeks maybe) while continuing to repeat steps 1 and 2 to create more accounts. 4) Having collected enough seasoned accounts, use them all at once to pile on fraudulent downloads and nearly-all-five-star reviews to maximize chart impact. The result is many fraudulent positive reviews for not just appspam but popular legitimate apps as well. Many popular free apps end up with many more reviews that are overwhelmingly positive (a rich-get-richer effect) and have the trademark brief and too-weird proto-English that characterize fake app reviews. It's a strange phenomenon -- try reading a few pages of Angry Birds Free reviews sometime (preferably morning hours in North America) and you'll see what I mean. The developers of top free apps are receiving (and benefitting from) spam reviews they never solicited.
karipatila 15y ago
Can you still review an app you "purchased" with a promo code? Seems like a flaw to allow people who didn't pay for the app to rate it. This would also allow giving away codes in exchange for a certain amount of stars.
- jlmendezbonini 15y ago
  As far as I know, no, you can not longer write reviews from apps downloaded with promo codes. It seems that the change was recent (couple of months ago). A google search showed lots of articles about but I couldn't find an official Apple statement about it.
  - SeoxyS 15y ago
    You still can. I've had friends review my apps even though I gave them all promo codes. And for the record, I don't think it's unethical to ask a few friends for a favor. It'd actually recommend as a marketing strategy to hand out as many promo codes as possible. To bloggers, friends, anybody who asks or complains about your app on twitter. The goodwill you gain is worth far more than the potential lost sales. Even at $20, I think giving out promo codes has made me much more in good business than the thousand bucks in "lost sales."
- reemrevnivek 15y ago
  It wouldn't be surprising if these reviews were fully paid. The developers get most of those payments back, so the expense of buying your own app a couple hundred times is insignificant in comparison with the income generated by being highly rated.
ericd 15y ago
Ha notice the name of the company, too... © Midwest Blizzard Entertainment Inc.
Groxx 15y ago
For those not willing to launch iTunes, the review breakdown is as follows: ★★★★★ [============= ] 354 ★★★★ [== ] 26 ★★★ [= ] 12 ★★ [= ] 10 ★ [==============] 384 And the "most helpful" review (15 of 17 people said it was helpful) looks like this: Great App ★★★★★ by Bondfan200 Great App!! Let's you be more creative with your iPhone. You are probably capable of imagining what the rest of the first-page reviews are. ---- Now would probably be a good time to complain about how horrible the App Store is. There are good things on it, but it's horrendous - finding good ones is hard, there's no way to demo paid apps (why not?! they control the whole system, they could enforce rules!), no way to review without paying, and no way to view or rate "+/- helpful" from the iPod/Phone (don't know about ipad). That last one in particular seems the greatest oversight for preventing this kind of thing. It's almost an ideal system for exploitation. I simply can't comprehend why it has stood this way for this long. Has Jobs even looked at this thing? I would think he'd be livid, it's total crap.
- leon_ 15y ago
  > demo paid apps As a developer I so miss this possibility. "Lite" apps and in app purchases are not the same as old school trial versions. It's even worse for the Mac app store as trial versions have been around for decades on the computer.
  - tres 15y ago
    Not sure why you couldn't set up a trial version using in app purchases and a server that records device ID and trial dates. Seems like all the parts are already there and it would not be difficult to implement. You rely on a server for trial functionality, but in the end you have much more control of the system...
    - leon_ 15y ago
      yeah, if only apple would be cool with that. (and lodsys)
    - Johngibb 15y ago
olivercameron 15y ago
This is getting insane. The app is now sitting at number 4 in the Top 100 paid apps, and he also just jacked the price up from $1.99 to $2.99. Surely staying off Apple's radar was his best bet? Instead he's decided to make a relatively quick buck selling 50,000 copies per day. I seriously hope Apple withholds his pay check when it is inevitably taken down.
zxer 15y ago
The plot thickens: http://itunes.apple.com/app/lockitize-your-lock-screen/id445198370?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/app/lockitize-your-lock-screen/id445... This is the exact same app from a different developer, who claims that the other one is a copy-cat and a scam. (leaving out the small detail that his own app is a scam as well)
- jabo 15y ago
  Oh man, a scam app being copied! This is pretty hilarious..
Joshim5 15y ago
Developer's twitter page: http://twitter.com/#!/Midw3stBlizzard http://twitter.com/#!/Midw3stBlizzard
Joshim5 15y ago
This app (by yet another developer than listed below), called Locketize your iPhone, has 32 five star reviews and only 4 one star reviews. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lockitize-your-iphone/id452663210?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lockitize-your-iphone/id45266...
startupcto 15y ago
To be honest, there is no proof that the developer made up false reviews. In fact, the description in the middle of the page states pretty clearly that this App provides perceived notion of security and it's just a decoy. So what to take away from this? For one, 99% of AppStore users don't fucking read the description. In fact I would have bet that the only two things that made them bought the app what the icon and name.
- jabo 15y ago
  You should read some of the reviews for the app: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2855656 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2855656
jabo 15y ago
Update: The app is currently number 12 in the top grossing list. Most recent reviews are crying foul and insist on getting their money back and Apple is yet to do anything about this.
sissym 15y ago
guys this is botnet. reviewing/buying from the bots - do what you want. and no proofs. i think this guy will receive his money. sorry for pure engl

51 points by jabo 15y ago

jabo 15y ago

Click on "View in iTunes" and read through the reviews. The app is currently number one under the paid utilities section. I really don't know how they managed to get there. Fake accounts writing reviews? Mechanical Turk? FYI: All the app does is change your wallpaper.

angryasian 15y ago
I'm very interested in how these are being gamed as well

mattberg 15y ago

Unfortunately this seems to be a pretty common occurrence. I have seen it quite often in the Entertainment section with apps like X-Ray Scan or Phone Tracker. Not sure why nothing is ever done about it.

cubicle67 15y ago

This one, by the same developer(s?) is far worse http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/id452096746?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/id452096746?mt=8 It's called Flash网页浏览器 and the entire description (in the AU store) is in (chinese?) except for a few words like "Adobe Flash","100%" and "SOUTHPARKSTUDIOS.COM FTW!!!!!" The screenshots appear to depict an iPad viewing a number of flash based sites and playing flash games. Oh, and it's $10.49 Edit: Their description contains a link to a "trial version" at http://hdmediaplus.biz/flash http://hdmediaplus.biz/flash. This redirects to http://www.dailymotion.com/html5 http://www.dailymotion.com/html5 which demos a movie playing using html5

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
cynix 15y ago
The Chinese description looks like machine translation.

potatolicious 15y ago

I see the $99 developer fee and the closed ecosystem is keeping out the riff raff like it's supposed to...

cageface 15y ago
The app store is brimming with crap. The only advantage I can see of Apple's gatekeeping at this point is that Apple seems to be doing a much better job of keeping out malware than Google. That alone might be enough to justify their approach if the growth rate of Android malware doesn't change.

nanijoe 15y ago

I genuinely need someone to please help me understand what the problem is. How is this developer gaming the review system?

jabo 15y ago
Answer this: Is it pure coincidence that an equal number of people hate the app and love it so much as to give it a 5 star rating? Oh and EVERY five star rater also recommends the app strongly for others to give it a try. Oh and all the app does us change your lock screen wallpaper.
- jabo 15y ago
  Here are some interesting comments from the 5 star raters: "Lock screen is an amazing game I love it" - 6 out of 6 customers found this review helpful "Use it everyday" - The app was published on August 04 and this comment was on August 06. "Great app. Love the sync capability. Can't beat the price:-)" - Reminds of those random spam comments I used to get on a blog I maintained. "This is the way it's supposed to be! This is an essentially perfect app. The developers are GREAT too!" "I use this program more than any single other on my iPhone, and IPad. The devs are really responsive and they are totally dedicated to making this the best, most useful app in your arsenal" "The application is wonderful, very nice design, stores all of the information you could possibly want. I really love it and would 100% recommend it." - It's a wallpaper changing app! "This is a great example of what an iPhone app should be! Great work! Definitely work the price. Check out this great app today and you'll love it!" - What a genuine review. Most helpful so far.
sissym 15y ago
botnet.

jabo 15y ago

When I first saw it, the app was $1.99. It is now $2.99.

bignoggins 15y ago

Apple recently tried to curb this by preventing reviews from promo codes. Looks like they just Bought the apps outright. These review scam aren't the worst of it. A lot of good reviews won't necessarily mean good sales for your app. I've seen tons of apps with five star reviews languish in the app store. The bigger worry to me is companies like appmagenta which promise a certain ranking using bot downlods.

Cushman 15y ago

You can buy and rate an app through iTunes without actually having a iPhone synced, right? 400 scammy 5-star reviews don't represent 400 iPhones out there, they represent 400 PayPal accounts — shoot, it might even be the same PayPal account — and a bill for $800 less $560 earnings. I just confirmed this by creating a new Apple ID, linking it to my real PayPal which has been linked to a different account in the past, and buying and reviewing a (different, non-scammy) app. (Sorry Apple!) Seems like the quick fix here is to require you to rate apps on the device itself. It would raise the barrier to entry significantly, at least.

benjaminma 15y ago
Or a bill of $400... Aug 07 '11 $1.99 -> $2.99 Aug 06 '11 $.99 -> $1.99 Aug 04 '11 New App: $.99 (release) This scam isn't limited to paid apps. There are "marketing" services that promise tens of thousands of downloads of your app on the day of your choosing (obviously, to game the iTunes free rankings). Apparently, another developer is claiming the assets/screenshots used are also stolen by this stand up guy: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lockitize-your-lock-screen/id445198370?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lockitize-your-lock-screen/id...
- Cushman 15y ago
  Which has 34 5-star reviews, 546 1-star reviews, and none in between. This is pretty ludicrous :P

olivercameron 15y ago

Unfortunately, scams like this aren't new on the App Store. Ever since the App Store has been around there's been seedy apps perpetrating to do things that just aren't possible. You just have to do a search for apps like "location trackers" to see how widespread it is. I saw this particular app in the Top 100 around 2 months ago, and noticed it had an average rating of 1 star, how this has evaded being on Apple's radar for this long is beyond me. Apple has taken a lot of flak for being too stringent and strict with the App Store review process, but this is one area the whole process was designed to fix. This is literally a case of a single guy falsely advertising his app and, by all accounts, having hundreds of thousands people fall for it and pay $1.99 for the privilege of being screwed.

joshuamerrill 15y ago
My email just now to the App Store review team: Dear Apple, As an Apple developer and longtime user, I'm proud to recommend Apple products to my friends and family. There is simplicity, thoughtful constraint, and craftsmanship in everything Apple does. That's why I was stunned to see this app--and numerous others from the same developer--in the App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lockify-your-lock-screen-hd/id451287882?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lockify-your-lock-screen-hd/i... I'm surprised this app was approved in the first place. By many accounts, it does absolutely nothing. I cannot count on two hands how many App Store rules this developer is violating. And the App Store review system is obviously being gamed. This developer is earning thousands of hard-earned dollars from Apple customers who trust you to keep garbage out of the App Store. I love Apple. Please don't let the App Store resemble the cheap, neglected morass of the Android Market. Sincerely, Joshua Merrill
- shaggyfrog 15y ago
  Your e-mail is probably destined for the bitbucket. If you really want to affect change, I'd suggest spreading a link to this to everyone you can. Generally, with problems like this, they only go away after reaching a sufficient level of media exposure. On the other hand, if you're really lucky, someone from Apple is reading this right now and taking care of it :)

zach 15y ago

The current state of the art that I've noticed for App Store review spam is to: 1) Create accounts well ahead of time 2) Use the accounts to give nearly-always-five-star reviews to several highly-rated and frequently-reviewed free apps, such as Angry Birds Free, Instagram, etc. 3) Age the accounts for a while (weeks maybe) while continuing to repeat steps 1 and 2 to create more accounts. 4) Having collected enough seasoned accounts, use them all at once to pile on fraudulent downloads and nearly-all-five-star reviews to maximize chart impact. The result is many fraudulent positive reviews for not just appspam but popular legitimate apps as well. Many popular free apps end up with many more reviews that are overwhelmingly positive (a rich-get-richer effect) and have the trademark brief and too-weird proto-English that characterize fake app reviews. It's a strange phenomenon -- try reading a few pages of Angry Birds Free reviews sometime (preferably morning hours in North America) and you'll see what I mean. The developers of top free apps are receiving (and benefitting from) spam reviews they never solicited.

karipatila 15y ago

Can you still review an app you "purchased" with a promo code? Seems like a flaw to allow people who didn't pay for the app to rate it. This would also allow giving away codes in exchange for a certain amount of stars.

jlmendezbonini 15y ago
As far as I know, no, you can not longer write reviews from apps downloaded with promo codes. It seems that the change was recent (couple of months ago). A google search showed lots of articles about but I couldn't find an official Apple statement about it.
- SeoxyS 15y ago
  You still can. I've had friends review my apps even though I gave them all promo codes. And for the record, I don't think it's unethical to ask a few friends for a favor. It'd actually recommend as a marketing strategy to hand out as many promo codes as possible. To bloggers, friends, anybody who asks or complains about your app on twitter. The goodwill you gain is worth far more than the potential lost sales. Even at $20, I think giving out promo codes has made me much more in good business than the thousand bucks in "lost sales."
reemrevnivek 15y ago
It wouldn't be surprising if these reviews were fully paid. The developers get most of those payments back, so the expense of buying your own app a couple hundred times is insignificant in comparison with the income generated by being highly rated.

ericd 15y ago

Ha notice the name of the company, too... © Midwest Blizzard Entertainment Inc.

Groxx 15y ago

For those not willing to launch iTunes, the review breakdown is as follows: ★★★★★ [============= ] 354 ★★★★ [== ] 26 ★★★ [= ] 12 ★★ [= ] 10 ★ [==============] 384 And the "most helpful" review (15 of 17 people said it was helpful) looks like this: Great App ★★★★★ by Bondfan200 Great App!! Let's you be more creative with your iPhone. You are probably capable of imagining what the rest of the first-page reviews are. ---- Now would probably be a good time to complain about how horrible the App Store is. There are good things on it, but it's horrendous - finding good ones is hard, there's no way to demo paid apps (why not?! they control the whole system, they could enforce rules!), no way to review without paying, and no way to view or rate "+/- helpful" from the iPod/Phone (don't know about ipad). That last one in particular seems the greatest oversight for preventing this kind of thing. It's almost an ideal system for exploitation. I simply can't comprehend why it has stood this way for this long. Has Jobs even looked at this thing? I would think he'd be livid, it's total crap.

leon_ 15y ago
> demo paid apps As a developer I so miss this possibility. "Lite" apps and in app purchases are not the same as old school trial versions. It's even worse for the Mac app store as trial versions have been around for decades on the computer.
- tres 15y ago
  Not sure why you couldn't set up a trial version using in app purchases and a server that records device ID and trial dates. Seems like all the parts are already there and it would not be difficult to implement. You rely on a server for trial functionality, but in the end you have much more control of the system...
  - leon_ 15y ago
    yeah, if only apple would be cool with that. (and lodsys)
  - Johngibb 15y ago

olivercameron 15y ago

This is getting insane. The app is now sitting at number 4 in the Top 100 paid apps, and he also just jacked the price up from $1.99 to $2.99. Surely staying off Apple's radar was his best bet? Instead he's decided to make a relatively quick buck selling 50,000 copies per day. I seriously hope Apple withholds his pay check when it is inevitably taken down.

zxer 15y ago

The plot thickens: http://itunes.apple.com/app/lockitize-your-lock-screen/id445198370?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/app/lockitize-your-lock-screen/id445... This is the exact same app from a different developer, who claims that the other one is a copy-cat and a scam. (leaving out the small detail that his own app is a scam as well)

jabo 15y ago
Oh man, a scam app being copied! This is pretty hilarious..

Joshim5 15y ago

Developer's twitter page: http://twitter.com/#!/Midw3stBlizzard http://twitter.com/#!/Midw3stBlizzard

Joshim5 15y ago

This app (by yet another developer than listed below), called Locketize your iPhone, has 32 five star reviews and only 4 one star reviews. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lockitize-your-iphone/id452663210?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lockitize-your-iphone/id45266...

startupcto 15y ago

To be honest, there is no proof that the developer made up false reviews. In fact, the description in the middle of the page states pretty clearly that this App provides perceived notion of security and it's just a decoy. So what to take away from this? For one, 99% of AppStore users don't fucking read the description. In fact I would have bet that the only two things that made them bought the app what the icon and name.

jabo 15y ago
You should read some of the reviews for the app: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2855656 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2855656

jabo 15y ago

Update: The app is currently number 12 in the top grossing list. Most recent reviews are crying foul and insist on getting their money back and Apple is yet to do anything about this.

sissym 15y ago

guys this is botnet. reviewing/buying from the bots - do what you want. and no proofs. i think this guy will receive his money. sorry for pure engl