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Apple Removes Old Non-Customer Reviews from App Store

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,548
30,868


When Apple first opened the App Store back in July 2008, their review system allowed anyone to enter a comment or review on any application. No purchase was required at that time. As a result, many critical "reviews" came from those who had never bought those applications. Developers, of course, were particularly unhappy with this system which brought down the average score for almost all paid applications.

In September, however, Apple instituted a new rule in which customers could only leave reviews on applications they had actually purchased and downloaded. Existing "reviews" from these non-customers, however, remained in place.

That is, until yesterday. It appears that Apple has removed these early non-customer reviews. Several long standing apps have seen dramatic decreases in their review counts. SEGA's Super Monkey Ball count dropped from 4197 reviews down to 3710 while Namco's Pac Man dropped from 395 to 122. MacRumors forum users have noted that it has been these specific non-customer reviews have been targeted and removed.

Article Link: Apple Removes Old Non-Customer Reviews from App Store
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2009/02/26/apple-removes-old-non-customer-reviews-from-app-store/
Schtumple

Schtumple

macrumors 601
Jun 13, 2007
4,905
131
benkadams.com
Seems pretty fair, how can you write a review on an app you haven't used, I remember seeing a 1 star review for an app, that started with, "I haven't actually used this app but...", why are you reviewing something you haven't used?!
 
arn

arn

macrumors god
Staff member
Apr 9, 2001
16,363
5,795
DJAKO said:
Along with the removing the reviews, has anyone seen the average rating gone up or down?
Click to expand...

Not that I could tell. Average reviews seem the same comparing now to about a week ago, but that might mean that Apple was already disregarding those reviews in the average calculation for a longer period of time.

arn
 
T

Trajectory

macrumors 6502a
Nov 13, 2005
741
0
Earth
I've also seen 1-star reviews that start with "This is the BEST app I ever got!!11!!11!!!" :confused:

I wish they'd do the same in the iTunes Store. You can't realistically review a song based a 30-second preview. Only those who buy the song or album should be able to rate them.
 
L

lftrghtparadigm

macrumors 6502
Oct 12, 2008
462
0
This is a huge positive step for developers. Non customer = no opinion. At least not one that should have any way to affect sales.
 
H

happajay

macrumors newbie
Feb 26, 2009
1
0
Thank Goodness

This is great. So many applications I've downloaded had the one star review/did'nt download it because, '....this should be free....99cents is way over priced....blah blah'. A lot of fine apps had reviews like this by people who thing other people should program apps for them for free. Morans!
 
U

uicandrew

macrumors 6502a
Jan 19, 2006
555
3
happajay said:
This is great. So many applications I've downloaded had the one star review/did'nt download it because, '....this should be free....99cents is way over priced....blah blah'. A lot of fine apps had reviews like this by people who thing other people should program apps for them for free. Morans!
Click to expand...

I will miss some of the non-customer reviews because some named free alternatives in the App store. There's no need to pay for an app whose functionality is the same or worse than a free one.
 
Poll Smoker

Poll Smoker

macrumors 6502a
Jul 20, 2007
684
1
Trajectory said:
True! But you could say the same for apps. Several friends have iPhones, so, I often ask if they got any cool new apps to show me. I can sometimes play around with an app without buying it.
Click to expand...

Do you really think that's the same thing?

:rolleyes:
 
Littleodie914

Littleodie914

macrumors 68000
Jun 9, 2004
1,813
8
Rochester, NY
It's a step in the right direction, I still have a question though, maybe you guys can answer it.

My application has 474 reviews, and an overall rating of 2 1/2 stars. When I read the reviews, sorted from worst to best, the third page (reviews 51-75) are already in the 3-star range. How can there be 10+ pages of 4/5 star reviews, 2 pages of 1/2 star reviews, with a resulting overall rating of only 2 1/2 stars?

Does Apple allow anonymous ratings, without the comments? Would it really cause such a huge drop?

Has anyone else encountered this with their app(s)?
 
HLdan

HLdan

macrumors 603
Aug 22, 2007
6,383
0
Excellent move by Apple. Now smaller developers can have a chance at getting fair reviews for new apps. What I don't understand is why would anyone rate this article negative? All the comments so far are positive. I guess the ones who are rating it negative have no life and live in misery.
 
Mykbibby

Mykbibby

macrumors 6502a
Jun 1, 2007
559
161
Palm Springs, CA
Trajectory said:
I've also seen 1-star reviews that start with "This is the BEST app I ever got!!11!!11!!!" :confused:

I wish they'd do the same in the iTunes Store. You can't realistically review a song based a 30-second preview. Only those who buy the song or album should be able to rate them.
Click to expand...

Ya, I've wondered why so many people give great apps one star... they must think 1 is the best and 5 is the worst...

I totally agree with you about the songs as well.
 
krye

krye

macrumors 68000
Aug 21, 2007
1,606
1
USA
Good. It's about time Apple starting doing stuff in the App Store that made sense.
 
gceo

gceo

macrumors 6502a
Jul 13, 2007
655
1
San Diego, CA
Trajectory said:
I've also seen 1-star reviews that start with "This is the BEST app I ever got!!11!!11!!!" :confused:
Click to expand...

Yup. This is a much bigger problem than it seems. The default should be no stars, and not allowed to submit. In a hurry it's way too easy to select the default of 1 star, and really bring down the average, even if you love the app and wrote a favorable review.
 
kastenbrust

kastenbrust

macrumors 68030
Dec 26, 2008
2,890
0
North Korea
This is really good news, stops other developers constantly attacking your apps, which happens a lot :eek:

Now all Apple needs to do is sack the retard that accepts/deny's apps into the App store, then we'll be good to go. Come on, accepting an app of a shaking pair of a woman's anatomy, but rejecting an email backup app is just stupid.
 
B

bob_hearn

macrumors regular
Jan 15, 2004
115
3
Vancouver, BC
Cool. I lost my single 1-star review; now the lowest I have is 3 stars.

My reviews dropped from 93 to 86, and my average rating went up to 4.85... at least based on all the reviews you can see.

However, it still shows up as a 4-star app, because of the damn "rate on delete" feature.

If they would remove that next, that would be nice!
 
longball11

longball11

macrumors 6502a
Feb 3, 2009
656
0
They should do the same thing to iTunes. I'm sick of seeing some reviews like a scammer promoting "If you want to hear another band like this...Listen to Braintree" they always make the overall rating go down by giving it a 4 stars.
 
happydude

happydude

macrumors 65816
Sep 2, 2006
1,197
795
a gasping dying planet
MacRumors app!!

where's the macrumors app? have an app with the latest rumors, ability to post comments from the app, browse forums, etc.

would be a great app!

would apple accept the app . . .
 
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