App Store Changes in Reviews and Listings

[MacRumors]

Over the weekend, Apple has implemented some changes to the way their iTunes App Store listings and reviews are handled.

One issue that had been the source of developer frustration is that anyone had previously been allowed to leave "Customer Reviews" -- even for apps they had not personally purchased. This led to a frequent comments complaining about price from individuals who had never bought the application. A simple change this weekend now requires customers to have bought the application in order to be able to leave a customer review. Both customers and developers seem pleased about this change.

Another change has been the removal of the "All iPhone Applications" link which has typically provided a method for customers to view the most recently released applications. Instead, users must visit individual categories to see the latest releases. This change may be part of larger changes, however. One developer claims (via AppleInsider) that App Store listings are now organized by true release dates rather than most recent updates. In the past, any version update would bump an application to the top of the list, increasing its exposure.

While this would be a welcome change that should prevent frequent and unnecessary app "updates", without the presence of the "All iPhone Applications" listing, the benefit is limited, since users have to visit each individual category to find new applications.

In the meanwhile, readers can use these RSS feeds (currently in testing) to find new applications, version updates, and price drops in the App Store:


All Changes
New Apps (All)
New Apps (Free)
New Apps (Paid)
Price Drops (and Increases)
Version Updates



Article Link

[RTiii320]

Interesting, some of the price changes are kind of odd to see especially the price increases, but besides that i like to see the reviews only being limited to the customers. There are reviews by users who just want to waste peoples time and are pointless, the developers are 100% right that they should not receive negative feedback from someone who hasnt even tried there product.

[wheezy]

Awesome, only customers who purchased can review. That's a welcome change I believe. I was pretty tired of 1 star reviews because people complained about the price. You'd think it would be common sense to just not review something you haven't used??

[PoitNarf]

Apple should have had it this way from the start. I hope they have a way to scrub the existing reviews to get rid of all the ones submitted by people who didn't download the app.

[sunfast]

I think we're seeing the first signs of the AppStore maturing.

The RSS feeds look great - there have been some great bargains recently with priced drops, definitely a shame to miss out on them

[840quadra]

That was one of the reasons that I never took the reviews seriously. I found that I could leave a review for an application I was looking at buying, and read some reviews and noticed that many were invalid.

Hopefully this will start to show the correct ratings for applications in a more reliable fashion.

[Pring]

I'm fairly convinced the 'update' date thing is a bug, not intentional.

For one thing the date has actually rolled back to the SUBMISSION date not the original RELEASE date. That makes no sense, given the variable queue length.

For another, this is a known issue going back as far as August that occurred for SOME applications when editing meta data. I'm willing to bet that when trying to fix the iTunes database after the weekend problems they've triggered it for all apps. See these threads for reference.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread....17099&#7917099
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....18774&#8018774

[Scooterman1]

It's too bothersome to hunt through each individual catagory to find new, or updated Apps.
I don't mind the fact that if a Developer is really on the ball, and is constantly working on updates for their App, if it bumps it up in the Store. That just shows that they are listening to customer feedback and suggestions.
I really hope that Apple brings the All Apps back, or they have lost some sales from this customer because I will NOT search or browse through all that mess when I'm used to getting it in a couple of clicks.

[motulist]

I hope this applies to the iPod games section of the store too. So many reviews on games there give it one star and comment like "COME ON! This is lame! We want games like Mario Bros on our iPods! Stop with this stupid [insert game name] crap!"

[RTiii320]

Originally Posted by PoitNarf

Apple should have had it this way from the start. I hope they have a way to scrub the existing reviews to get rid of all the ones submitted by people who didn't download the app.

I would second that thought, however as im sure you already thought of, implementing that may be a mess. With hundreds maybe thousands of apps with hundreds maybe thousands of reviews it could be a process apple doesnt want to go through the hassle of

[unity]

Now why can they not do this with the rest of the iTunes store. I would be GREAT if only purchasers could review music and particularly movies!

I am so sick of "iTunes, I want to buy not rent! Click yes if you agree!"....

[MacJoe]

I hope they extend this to the music parts of the iTunes store too.

[Pring]

Originally Posted by unity

Now why can they not do this with the rest of the iTunes store. I would be GREAT if only purchasers could review music and particularly movies!

I am so sick of "iTunes, I want to buy not rent! Click yes if you agree!"....

You can listen to music/watch movies in other places. The only place you can use these apps is in the app store.

[unity]

Originally Posted by Pring

You can listen to music/watch movies in other places. The only place you can use these apps is in the app store.

That makes no sense seeing as we are talking about iTunes reviews... but, um, ok...

[fat phil]

Originally Posted by 840quadra

That was one of the reasons that I never took the reviews seriously. I found that I could leave a review for an application I was looking at buying, and read some reviews and noticed that many were invalid.

Hopefully this will start to show the correct ratings for applications in a more reliable fashion.

Absolutely agree.

You'd never buy a games magazine that gave scores to games based on what was written on the back of the box. People should never have been allowed to review apps they hadn't bought in the first place: It can be extremely damaging for a few bored people to kill their time slating products they aren't even interested in in the first place.

[jstanier]

We were talking about this across in the App Store subforum, and it's definitely a step in the right direction for the store.

[acxz]

They've also removed the ability to browse only the free apps...

[Pring]

Originally Posted by acxz

They've also removed the ability to browse only the free apps...

Which is a massive step backwards and makes little sense.

I tell you, I'm sure it's just the database reset after the weekend's borkage that's broken it. It _should_ get fixed and return to normal.

[MadGoat]

The review section for apps is broken for me, I can't leave coments on apps I have purchased. Tells me it's only for people who have purchased it.

[BornAgainMac]

What about Genius App feature?

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

I like the fact that only those customers that purchased the app can review it. I don't know about the other changes just yet since I haven't had the chance to check then out.

[rhett7660]

I was pretty tired of 1 star reviews because people complained about the price.

You and me both.....

[justcallmepete]

Originally Posted by Pring

Which is a massive step backwards and makes little sense.

I tell you, I'm sure it's just the database reset after the weekend's borkage that's broken it. It _should_ get fixed and return to normal.

no actually its very smart on their part. it makes all the sense in the world. why put on display ALL free apps? I bet you any amount of money that people will be buying more apps. At least it makes them go though all the apps instead of limiting to just free. VERY smart on apple. Im surprised it wasnt like this from the beginning. Just because it makes you search for free apps, doesnt mean its a step backwards. maybe you should support developers and buy an app every once and a while instead of just downloading all free ones.

[aufmobi]

Sounds logical, I'm shocked it wasn't setup this way from the beginning.

I also think the reviews should be more detailed or averaged out based on improved rating system. When there are no trial versions there needs to be a more comprehensive and reliable means for detailing opinions.

[jweinraub]

I would like though to have the ability to update all apps at once on iPod Touch rather than update, go back into Apps application, update, repeat.... really annoying that all can't be queued up, even purchasing should add to cart and purchase all at once w/o having to go back in. This will generate more revenue since if they are in the store and forced out, some people will be unlikely to go back in to get more if on the pod/phone.

I think I do 90% of my purchased of Apps on the iPod, which is strange since 90% of my songs are done on iTunes.