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The closest thing that Apple can do to "print money" for a developer is to feature an application on the App Store. Apple does this to highlight software that i

by sumukh1 15y ago

The closest thing that Apple can do to "print money" for a developer is to feature an application on the App Store. Apple does this to highlight software that it likes. The fact that Apple does this already shows that they are trying to get great apps in front of users. In terms of personal curation, I think Genius solves that. It isn't as complicated or thorough as it could be, but it works. As a dev what would I like to see? All my apps being featured. but seriously; 1. The ability to respond to reviews. A review of one of my apps said this: 1 Star, "This is total junk. I don't even know why but it's horrible. Don't buy it. It's not worth it. Trust me" The context is that it's a free app (with no ads) and every other review has given it 5 stars. Who knows how many users that has scared away? 2. A more effective ranking algorithm. Preferably one that isn't as susceptible to gaming via these bot farms mentioned in OP. Apps that deserve to be there should not have their spot taken. You can see the benefit of fair ranking on the paid list because no-one has even tried botting that.

potatolicious 15y ago
> "In terms of personal curation, I think Genius solves that. It isn't as complicated or thorough as it could be, but it works." Genius has never worked well for me, neither in music nor in apps. It provides recommendations that are never wildly off the mark, but it's far from smart. Certainly I would be extremely reluctant to have it be a primary form of app discovery. > "The fact that Apple does this already shows that they are trying to get great apps in front of users." Certainly, but it's not enough. There are millions of apps on the store, and Apple can surface, what, 100-odd apps to a user in a given day? There is a huge portion of great, but not top-100-worthy apps that users would be interested it in. > "1. The ability to respond to reviews." Absolutely. I work on one of the top apps in the store, and we get a lot of reviews that are really bug reports. We do have a support email, but naturally not everybody finds their way there. We'd love to improve the software, but it's impossible if we can't communicate with reviewers!
- jakobe 15y ago
  I'm extremely happy that developers can't respond to user reviews. Many developers would just use the opportunity to tell lies about how their users are stupid and wrong. Of course this restriction is annoying for honest, hard working developers. But if honest, hard working developers have a problem with bug reports in the reviews, they can just as well fix the bugs and test the app more thoroughly before the next release.
  - potatolicious 15y ago
    > " they can just as well fix the bugs and test the app more thoroughly before the next release." This is going to sound snarky but... do you write apps? Or, well, any reasonably complex piece of software? I dare say where I work we test apps far more thoroughly than most, but inevitably there are misses. When you have an app of a certain complexity you will always be sitting on top of a veritable pile of unsubstantiated bug reports. When you have literally millions of users, someone somewhere will trip over even the most obscure bug (in your code or Apple's... or 3rd party's). When users reach out to us we can get crash logs, and that helps greatly. When it's an app review... not so much. > "I'm extremely happy that developers can't respond to user reviews." You assume I mean publicly respond to reviews. That's not what I meant. It would be extremely helpful if devs can respond to user reviews privately, via some moderated channel where the user's real contact info is never revealed. It will at least give us a chance to correct a bad experience or collect debug data.
    - jakobe 15y ago
      Yes, I write apps. Yes, I know that some bugs will slip through. And I have had customers write "bug reports" in the app store comments. My take on it is: If a bug slips through, I have to live with the public humiliation as a consequence. As for responding to reviews: Yes, I meant public responses. In my opinion private responses to reviews are useless, because I assume that people who believe that reviews are the best way to report bugs are also incapable of sending crash reports, even if you send them step-by-step instructions how to do so. I am talking from experience. People send all kinds of things when you ask them for crash reports. If I get a reply, I might get console log entries or crash reports for different apps. If you ask people how large their file is, they may say: "several gigabytes" when it is actually 10MB. Those people who have a sufficient understanding of computers to provide useful feedback also understand that they should report bugs via email.
- suresk 15y ago
  As a developer, the ability to respond to reviews is also the #1 feature I would like to see. The lone 1-star review for my app contains factually incorrect information based on what I believe is a simple misunderstanding on the part of the user. This kills me, not only because his review has likely scared away a number of potential customers, but also because I can't help him resolve the simple misunderstanding because I have no way of contacting him. It is unfortunate that many users utilize the review system instead of proper support channels to complain about bugs or perceived bugs, leaving us no way to help them. As for the concern that sellers would use responses as a means of abusing customers - I would think that most intelligent users would see it for what it was and avoid sellers who routinely abused or blamed their users. On the other hand, a seller who politely responded to negative reviews with a resolution, a means of getting help, or at the very least a promise to look into the issue(s) would be rightly viewed more favorably.

by sumukh1 15y ago

potatolicious 15y ago

> "In terms of personal curation, I think Genius solves that. It isn't as complicated or thorough as it could be, but it works." Genius has never worked well for me, neither in music nor in apps. It provides recommendations that are never wildly off the mark, but it's far from smart. Certainly I would be extremely reluctant to have it be a primary form of app discovery. > "The fact that Apple does this already shows that they are trying to get great apps in front of users." Certainly, but it's not enough. There are millions of apps on the store, and Apple can surface, what, 100-odd apps to a user in a given day? There is a huge portion of great, but not top-100-worthy apps that users would be interested it in. > "1. The ability to respond to reviews." Absolutely. I work on one of the top apps in the store, and we get a lot of reviews that are really bug reports. We do have a support email, but naturally not everybody finds their way there. We'd love to improve the software, but it's impossible if we can't communicate with reviewers!

jakobe 15y ago
I'm extremely happy that developers can't respond to user reviews. Many developers would just use the opportunity to tell lies about how their users are stupid and wrong. Of course this restriction is annoying for honest, hard working developers. But if honest, hard working developers have a problem with bug reports in the reviews, they can just as well fix the bugs and test the app more thoroughly before the next release.
- potatolicious 15y ago
  > " they can just as well fix the bugs and test the app more thoroughly before the next release." This is going to sound snarky but... do you write apps? Or, well, any reasonably complex piece of software? I dare say where I work we test apps far more thoroughly than most, but inevitably there are misses. When you have an app of a certain complexity you will always be sitting on top of a veritable pile of unsubstantiated bug reports. When you have literally millions of users, someone somewhere will trip over even the most obscure bug (in your code or Apple's... or 3rd party's). When users reach out to us we can get crash logs, and that helps greatly. When it's an app review... not so much. > "I'm extremely happy that developers can't respond to user reviews." You assume I mean publicly respond to reviews. That's not what I meant. It would be extremely helpful if devs can respond to user reviews privately, via some moderated channel where the user's real contact info is never revealed. It will at least give us a chance to correct a bad experience or collect debug data.
  - jakobe 15y ago
    Yes, I write apps. Yes, I know that some bugs will slip through. And I have had customers write "bug reports" in the app store comments. My take on it is: If a bug slips through, I have to live with the public humiliation as a consequence. As for responding to reviews: Yes, I meant public responses. In my opinion private responses to reviews are useless, because I assume that people who believe that reviews are the best way to report bugs are also incapable of sending crash reports, even if you send them step-by-step instructions how to do so. I am talking from experience. People send all kinds of things when you ask them for crash reports. If I get a reply, I might get console log entries or crash reports for different apps. If you ask people how large their file is, they may say: "several gigabytes" when it is actually 10MB. Those people who have a sufficient understanding of computers to provide useful feedback also understand that they should report bugs via email.
suresk 15y ago
As a developer, the ability to respond to reviews is also the #1 feature I would like to see. The lone 1-star review for my app contains factually incorrect information based on what I believe is a simple misunderstanding on the part of the user. This kills me, not only because his review has likely scared away a number of potential customers, but also because I can't help him resolve the simple misunderstanding because I have no way of contacting him. It is unfortunate that many users utilize the review system instead of proper support channels to complain about bugs or perceived bugs, leaving us no way to help them. As for the concern that sellers would use responses as a means of abusing customers - I would think that most intelligent users would see it for what it was and avoid sellers who routinely abused or blamed their users. On the other hand, a seller who politely responded to negative reviews with a resolution, a means of getting help, or at the very least a promise to look into the issue(s) would be rightly viewed more favorably.