Apple Seeking to Increase Participation in App Store Ratings?

[MacRumors]

iPhoneHellas.gr has published a screenshot from the latest iPhone 2.2 Beta 2 which reveals that Apple may be seeking to increase customer participation in reviewing iPhone and iPod Touch Apps.

Specifically, the latest firmware will ask users to rate an application if they decided to remove them from their iPhone. Apple would presumably send the rating back to the iTunes App Store. While Apple had originally allowed anyone to leave a apps ratings, Apple now requires customers to have purchased an application prior to rating/reviewing it.

Recently leaked screenshots of iPhone 2.2 Beta 2 have revealed a number of new features including:

- Google Street View
- Public Transit Times and walking Directions
- Location Sharing

Article Link: Apple Seeking to Increase Participation in App Store Ratings?

[Sky Blue]

If you're deleting, it can't be too good.

[atlandrew]

What better way to drive down ratings. Fail.

[Rojo]

Originally Posted by Sky Blue

If you're deleting, it can't be too good.

Took the words right out of my mouth. They should find a way to get people to rate before deleting.

[moopf]

Hmm, I hope there's a converse option to make it easy, or prompt, to leave a rating if you're happy with the app, otherwise this is really skewed towards those who aren't happy.

And, say you've had the app for a while, got more than your money's worth for it but then got bored of it. What would *you* be likely to put as the star rating? I'm guessing many would probably rate it lower than they would of whilst they were enjoying it.

Not sure about this at all.

[jasonrm]

On one hand I think this is a good idea as if you are deleting the app, there was a reason it didn't do what you needed if to do for you (in general). However, I wonder if it might also lead to more hasty ratings? I've only set out to rate two apps, one of which was BeejiveIM because I found it to be an amazing IM client, but I had used the app and found it to be good enough for me to take time and give it a good rating.

However if it's just a lame game like the Audi driver or whatever that was, and there had there been this option, it would have earned a one star upon removal...

hmm, maybe this is a good thing.

[lazyrighteye]

What... delete to rate?
Dumb.

[Hattig]

Originally Posted by atlandrew

What better way to drive down ratings. Fail.

I think "win" for exactly the same reasons. A brilliant way to get all the chaff rated down so that the outstanding software actually stands out.

[themoonisdown09]

Originally Posted by moopf

Hmm, I hope there's a converse option to make it easy, or prompt, to leave a rating if you're happy with the app, otherwise this is really skewed towards those who aren't happy.

And, say you've had the app for a while, got more than your money's worth for it but then got bored of it. What would *you* be likely to put as the star rating? I'm guessing many would probably rate it lower than they would of whilst they were enjoying it.

Not sure about this at all.

I agree. I don't know the best way to do it, but it should ask you to rate it after so many runs of an application. If it only asks when you delete, most likely, it won't be a good review.

[shareef777]

Hmm, am I the only one that thinks this would get annoying pretty quick?

[mainstreetmark]

This may help.

What may help more is to have a try-before-you-buy mechanism. You buy the app - get charged 2 days later or something. I've spent quite a bit on apps where the screenshots look nice, but the app is terrible. "iBeer", for example.

Oh, and I'd prefer they not use the splashscreen as the screenshots, in the store.

[AAPLaday]

Exactly, unless space is an issue i dont see people deleting apps they really want to keep and therefore their ratings will affect new people from giving the app a chance. If they are going to make you rate it then it should be done after a set time of owning the app or after so many app launches

[arn]

while this may sample more negative ratings, I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing.

arn

[sammich]

JellyCar fails as well. I like the concept a lot, except that it gets laggy, and well, all lag is fail.

[pfml07]

It is safe to say that this is a great idea to seom extent. However there are several issues with this.

Lets Point out the positives!

1. This is a great way to allow users to issue their views on apps simply and quickly.
2. The idea of rate on delete is quite good, this means if the application is actually rubbish, which alot are, then you can let other users know not to download it.
3. The star rating system is great but does it allow the users to leave reviews after they have given a star rating? We will see.

Ok so there are a few good points, now bad points

1. It would be very easy for people to just leave bad ratings for no reason at all. This will then slow down the sales of certain apps and therefore less income.
2. A 5 star rating is not enough for me personally to judge an app, i wanna know how good it is by people who have used it and know exactly what is bad and what is good about it.

If i had the time i would make the decision the possibly think of more, but right now im at work. Have fun reading. Any ideas then please leave them

[Maxington]

it's minimal feedback that is already biased to being negative if the reviewer is going to DELETE it.

[Morky]

Development effort would be better spent on making apps easier to discover. Within each category, we now need to select each item to learn what the program does. How about some subcategories or keyword searches? Or a way to mark the apps I'm considering or that I know I don't need? The store is growing so fast that current the organization is becoming unwieldy. Same goes for AppleTV movie rentals. They could be reinventing the video store, but instead, it's almost exactly like visiting a video store: Select genre, then look for movies one at a time by title. How about director searches, or a list of all-time Academy Award nominated films? Where is the creativity here? I think they are striving for simplicity, but an over-simple interface to a dizzying amount of information sacrifices utility.

[gilkisson]

Hmm. What lessons can we infer from new "features" like these?

1) Changes to the iPhone firmware will be geared towards either direct revenue-producing efforts (the app store) or "glitz", shiney baubles that invoke the "wow" reflex" but do very little of substance (street view).

2) Changes that wouldn't produce immediate revenue, but would satisfy the screaming masses (C/P, MMS, Push, the "holy Trinity") are relegated to back-burner status, if planned at all. After all, we already bought the iPhone, so there's no money to be made giving us what we want now.

It's sad, really. What the iPhone does, it does fantastically well. It just doesn't do all the "little" things that busy people really need/want it to do. The fact that the iPhone lacks things like the "holy Trinity" will carve off 10% of it's potential market share, handing back to Android and Crackberry. And that's a shame.

[moopf]

Originally Posted by arn

while this may sample more negative ratings, I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing.

arn

I'm intrigued as to why you think this, arn. If this has the effect of pulling all ratings down, as it's skewed towards those with no further use of an app or who didn't like it with no obvious counter-balance prompt for those who still use an app or did like it, then aren't we in a situation that's not only bad for developers but also, possibly, bad for Apple, as ratings fall across the board? I mean, if everything ended up 2/3 stars or below, what image is that going to present of the quality in the app store?

[fleshman03]

I do think this will increase the likelyhood of negative ratings. If Apple gave the users a chance to rate the app after a month or so, it could just get annoying.

this just reminds us why we need to rate apps we do like.

[dscuber9000]

I don't like this. I delete free apps all the time, but never delete paid apps. That puts paid apps at an immediate advantage in the ratings.

Anyway, is there any chance of an option to turn off the Auto-Correct? I can barely type because it constant changes slang, abbreviations, and words that simply aren't in the dictionary.

[scirica]

No Thanks

[arn]

Originally Posted by moopf

I'm intrigued as to why you think this, arn. If this has the effect of pulling all ratings down, as it's skewed towards those with no further use of an app or who didn't like it with no obvious counter-balance prompt for those who still use an app or did like it, then aren't we in a situation that's not only bad for developers but also, possibly, bad for Apple, as ratings fall across the board? I mean, if everything ended up 2/3 stars or below, what image is that going to present of the quality in the app store?

Well a few thoughts on it.

For free apps. I don't think it matters so much. Since I can try it out if I want.

But for pay apps, for the average user (most iPhone users), deleting a paid app is a significant deal. Remember, the vast majority of users aren't trying to figure out which apps they want to fit on their 9 available pages. I think a delete for a paid app from an average user is a significant event and think those thoughts being reflected in the rating is not a bad thing.

I don't know if I would expect a lot of apps to be unfairly rated with this.

arn

[themoonisdown09]

Originally Posted by arn

Well a few thoughts on it.

For free apps. I don't think it matters so much. Since I can try it out if I want.

But for pay apps, for the average user (most iPhone users), deleting a paid app is a significant deal. Remember, the vast majority of users aren't trying to figure out which apps they want to fit on their 9 available pages. I think a delete for a paid app from an average user is a significant event and think those thoughts being reflected in the rating is not a bad thing.

I don't know if I would expect a lot of apps to be unfairly rated with this.

arn

I guess I never looked at it that way... good point.

[Brendan.Porter]

This idea intrigues me. My new app Informant has sold over 200 units in the last week, but i have ZERO reviews. This appears to be hurting my sales compared even to my other app Task Time Calc that received some (possibly bogus) reviews that gave me only 1-2 stars and complained about design decisions that are explained in the App summary.