4 ms·
Appirater; helping iPhone app developers get balanced reviews
- alexkay 17y agoCould have a better name. App pirater? Sounds like a cracking tool.
- chaosprophet 17y agoLike someone pointed out in the post itself, since this is intended for use by developers and not end users, I'd say it doesn't matter what it's called.
- wan23 17y agoI can't help reading this name as App-Pirater rather than App-i-Rater.
- sh1mmer 17y agoI read it that way too.
- taitems 17y agoWow turn down the text-shadow there buddy. Alpha to 0.4 or something similar.
- j2d2 17y agoThis will be useful until they're popular.
- stcredzero 17y agoI notice that iPhone app ratings often look manipulated. On Amazon, if something is good, its ratings look like: ********** ***** ** * * If something is not so good, then there won't be this curve. Instead you might get something like: **** ***** ** **** ** But what I see time and again on the iPhone App Store: ********** ***** ** * ************ How I interpret this: You have a good or decent app, and other developers are gaming the system with bad reviews in an attempt to assassinate their competitor. In my case, this backfires. I now see this pattern for what it is, and this makes me more anxious to see the app: if the competition is so afraid of it, that they're driven to cheating, there must be something to it! Another thing I take away from this phenomenon: a disturbingly high percentage of iPhone app developers are scumbags!
- phil 17y agoThere are many possible explanations for that phenomenon. I wouldn't necessarily assume malice. Rate-on-delete tends to produce a lot of one star ratings, especially for free apps: if they liked the app, they wouldn't be deleting it. For paid apps, review copies tend to produce high ratings, since getting a special freebie primes people to like the app. Developers often give copies to friends, too, and they'll be much more likely to rate than the general public.
- stcredzero 17y agoBut I seem to see the phenomenon much more with paid apps than with unpaid. Maybe I need to figure out how to characterize these patterns statistically and do a survey.
- m_eiman 17y agoOr maybe it's biased by the "prompt user to rate when deleting it", like the article says. If you delete it, you probably don't like it very much - and you select the most extreme "don't like" option presented. And I say "maybe", because we need more experiments to see what the causes really are. I think that the "ask to rate after using it for a while" is superior to only asking when deleting, but of course you should have both to get the opinions of both satisfied and dissatisfied users.
- jsz0 17y agoThis has huge potential to annoy the hell out of users. I hope developers use it with prudence. Ask me once after 10 startups or whatever. Fine. Ask me again? Your score is going to be F, 0, horrible, awful, stole all my contacts and sold them to the Russian mafia. Deleted all my music. E-mailed all my private photos to everyone in my address book. Lies? Maybe, maybe so. I don't like being nagged. Once is enough.
- elai 17y agoIt only asks once per 30 days, and only IF you used it at least 15 times within those 30 days.
- ArashPayan 17y agoActually, it'll do it just once per version and only after 30 days and 15 launches. So if they tap 'Rate' or 'No, thanks', they won't be bugged anymore unless they update to a new version. Even then, only after 30 days of usage and 15 launches (which are both customizable).
- DenisM 17y agoEver heard of adequate response? No? Well, in this case it would be writing a review about the app being nagware. In general adequate responses are good because they prevent situations from escalating into hostilities. Yours also has a sideffect of making it impossible for any buyer in the app store to make an informed decision, and therefore makes it hard for good apps to stand out on the merit. It ends up giving a boost to the actual crappy apps because now, with your generous help, all apps have bad reviews - both truly bad apps and the ones that had the gall to ask for your opinion.
- jrockway 17y agoThis is a good idea. Amazon does something similar, after you buy something, it sends you an email a month or so later asking you to rate the buying experience (and sometimes the item itself). When I have a good experience, I often don't think to write a review, but this reminds me, and I usually do it. The result is that there are often a lot of positive reviews for things on Amazon, which makes me more comfortable buying from them.
- DenisM 17y agoFWIW my app has a web site part to it, and I put up a banner there asking users to write a review. It's easier on the desktop that it is on the iPhone. Seems to have worked - at least I know that people are clicking it and there have been quite a few reviews.