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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

by 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.

by jakobe 15y ago

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.