Apple No Longer Accepting App Store Reviews for Redeemed Promo Codes

[aarond12]

Guess someone nuked my reply. (Naughty!)

I downloaded State Farm's driving app recently, and found it's a piece of crap. I looked at the reviews and the first ones are all 5 stars -- including one person who admits he works for State Farm! The rest of the reviews were 1s, 2s, and 3s.

If Apple can keep these sort of obviously-fake reviews off the system, all the better. I want to see reviews from users, not from people who got the app for free.

 

[charlituna]

I think an even worse issue here, that this is helping against, is devs giving promo codes to people on his/her side, in order to create fake reviews.

"Here's a code - just post something nice about it! I gave you a code so you don't even have to purchase it, in exchange for a good review! Deal?"

I basically see this stopping unscrupulous developers in their tracks.

They don't been go that far. They set up say 50-70 fake iTunes accounts and then work in teams 'buying' aps via promo codes and putting up fake reviews. Sometimes they basically copy and paste them across several apps by 'different' companies

 

[Zepaw]

It sucks because I give honest reviews. I'm not going to sugar coat a garbage app because I got to try it free. I do understand some will feel they owe something to the dev for the code, or be in collusion.

Unfortunately this isn't true. If you really want to see your ratings plummet, just make your app free. You'll start getting orders of magnitude more downloads - from the entitlement crowd that never has anything nice to say. You'll go from a few "I want my 99 cents back" 1-star reviews to hundreds of "I want my wasted time back" 1-star reviews in no time.

Oh god yes. It is a free app, don't knock off 4 stars because you found one little irrelevant issue/design choice you dislike.

 

[jglavin]

Oh god yes. It is a free app, don't knock off 4 stars because you found one little irrelevant issue/design choice you dislike.

...Or can't figure out how to use the app. So many garbage 1-star reviews I see are from folks who can't seem to figure out the simplest UI choice.

 

[LightSpeed1]

It's a fair move.

 

[DennisVR]

Rather late but good!

 

[caspersoong]

Great move. However, it is true that people rate based on how much they pay.

 

[davelanger]

I've just received a promo today, and put an honest view on the App Store. What is the point in promo codes if I cannot feed back to the dev?

Stupid.

They maybe should let you write a review but it wont count in the offical reviews on the itune store, but it would still allow you to give your feedback to the devs.

 

[MacMan86]

They maybe should let you write a review but it wont count in the offical reviews on the itune store, but it would still allow you to give your feedback to the devs.

As has already been said here, I think losing the ability to feed back to a dev through a review is a moot point. If you have a promo code, the chances are you got it directly from the developer (be it by email, from Twitter etc) and so it's very easy to provide feedback to the dev directly. What's more, email and twitter feedback is much more effective because you can have a two-sided conversation, something you can't do with the review system.

All developers have to publish a support URL along with their app, so even if you got the promo code indirectly, you should be able to follow the support URL and most (/all good) developers provide a means to get in touch with them through their support page.

 

[psonice]

Here's a classic example of what apple are trying to 'fix': http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/night-vision/id390653138?mt=8

Open that in itunes. Take a look at the reviews. Mostly 5*. There's a review from the day the last update went live, "I love this solution app!" that 93 people found helpful. How likely is that?!

Now change the reviews from the default 'most helpful' to 'most recent'. All I see (US store atm) is 1*. They're nearly all complaints, several mentions of "scam" etc.

If that isn't blatant gaming of the system, I don't know what is.

Also, check out the website + support links. It's going to be easy to complain there isn't it

Crap like this needs to be off the store. Maybe we need a forum where we can highlight the worst of the abuses, and complain to apple together so they take a bit more notice?

 

[Hunnenkoenig]

PromoDispenser get's upset now that a camera's been installed in the bus they're driving they can't grope the school kids any more? (An illustration here, not an accusation) Closing the door on a site that's gaming the system is always a good idea.

Hello,

I am the developer who runs Promo Dispenser and we have never gamed the system. We connected developers with users and ensured, that promo codes were not wasted.

Our users gave always honest feedback. We never encouraged them to give better reviews in exchange. We did the exact opposite: we told in our registration email and in the FAQ that they should give HONEST feedback, as we believe that that is what helps a dev most to develop an app further. I believe our users gave always honest feedback, because there were often one star reviews for apps on Promo Dispenser, even if they got it for free.

I am an iPhone dev myself and I am surely not a cheater.

I assume, you have never seen the site in action. It did nothing else, than gave the developers the possibility for managing their promo codes and see, how many were given out, how many were reviewed and who reviewed them through our site.

It was a win-win situation and we had 1500 registered and happy developers and a few thousand happy users. The service was free for all and we had only work with it, but we had absolutely no gain by maintaining the site.

Next time please know what you are talking about before you assume something.

I know, there are many sites, who try to trick the system and try to pull the money out of your pocket. Promo Dispenser WAS NOT one of them.

It is a bad move on Apple's side, because small devs have absolutely no other possibilities to get reviews and exposure. Our site helped them to get as many reviews as promo codes were given away, so the app doesn't sit there with an empty review field. Our system worked well and was way better, than giwing away promno codes on Forums, because our users had to review the app before they got another one. It was an automated system and nobody had contact with nobody to tell them, they should write these and that.

It is always easy to forbid something for all, just because a few abused the system, than to work on a real solution. That is the american way, I assume.

Some people are killed by being hit by a car, so let's forbid driving cars....

And yes, Apple is still a bunch of jerks. Even wors, than Microsoft.

 

[MrNomNoms]

It's about time Apple put a block on this.
This should help eliminate some of the fake reviews.

One could equally say that about people who give products one star reviews because they didn't read the description or because they couldn't be actually bothered reviewing it (anyone remember the dialogue when deleting an app off your ipod touch/iphone? how many people just did 1 star or 5 star out of frustration?).

 

[psonice]

It is a bad move on Apple's side, because small devs have absolutely no other possibilities to get reviews and exposure.

I honestly think this is completely wrong, and you don't need to close your site too. Small devs have many ways to get exposure (and I am one ), and reviews will come naturally if the app is good enough (or bad enough ).

Promo codes are still an excellent marketing tool, because if the app is good enough whoever you give it to will show it to their friends and recommend it. I've heard of people getting more sales after their app was pirated for this same reason - the pirates go and show the app to their friends, some of whom go out and buy it. It's free advertising.

And obviously, giving promo codes out in return for reviews should NEVER be your main use for them. You'll get far better returns from handing them out to journalists and review sites, who'll get your app in front of a way bigger audience than 50 people.

 

[vksong]

I really think it is a bad news for both developers and users~
what a shame~

 

[psybert]

What is stopping developers from setting the starting price to free, then having a bunch of people download and review it before the App even propagates out everywhere, then change the price to paid?

Seems like people will just find other ways to do it (Giftcards is another).

 

[Hunnenkoenig]

Full quote

You don't really believe, what you say, do you?

I have seen hundreds of apps without any reviews on the Appstore, until they used Promo Dispenser and suddenly they got 10, 20, 50 reviews only written by our users.

I have a game, which was sold almost 400.000 times and has a few hundred reviews only, even if it was #3 in top overall and #2 in all games.
What do you think, how many reviews do you get with a small app?

That game wasn't even reviewed by all the big sites. Although it is over a year old, TouchArcade didn't review it yet, no matter that we bought ads on their site for thousands of dollars (which was a waste of money, because maybe 50 people clicked it) and have sent them promo codes and press releases.

The game got reviews by small sites only (which have absolutely no impact) and maybe 1 or 2 big sites.

Good luck to get reviewed with a crap app developed in the basement.

 

[psonice]

You don't really believe, what you say, do you?

I have seen hundreds of apps without any reviews on the Appstore, until they used Promo Dispenser and suddenly they got 10, 20, 50 reviews only written by our users.

I have a game, which was sold almost 400.000 times and has a few hundred reviews only, even if it was #3 in top overall and #2 in all games.
What do you think, how many reviews do you get with a small app?

That game wasn't even reviewed by all the big sites. Although it is over a year old, TouchArcade didn't review it yet, no matter that we bought ads on their site for thousands of dollars (which was a waste of money, because maybe 50 people clicked it) and have sent them promo codes and press releases.

The game got reviews by small sites only (which have absolutely no impact) and maybe 1 or 2 big sites.

Good luck to get reviewed with a crap app developed in the basement.

Yes, I do believe that. I base that on my own experience. Of course, if the app doesn't stand out in some way, if it doesn't have something special, it will sit with the other 300k+ apps and get little attention. You have to work to sell an app like this, and you need sites like promo dispenser. There's nothing wrong with that, the game or whatever might be good, it just needs plenty of work on the marketing.

If you make something special though, you don't really need this kind of thing. You put out a press release, you send some codes to review sites, and the app gets plenty of publicity because it catches people's attention. That sells plenty of apps at the beginning. Then, if the app is good, word of mouth is enough to keep it selling, you don't really need to market at all. (You probably should of course ) My last app was covered by gizmodo, business insider and a lot of other sites. I did a press release, and sent out maybe 10-15 promo codes to sites. That's all the marketing I did. It sold extremely well (considering it's not a game, and it's iPad2 only so the market is still small). It's still selling well, with no marketing.

From my own stats, under 1% of people leave a review. Roughly the same as your figures. But, it's very easy to get reviews when the app launches, so long as you have some initial sales. People will contact you for support, help them and ask them to review. So long as there are enough ratings to show up in the store (and the ratings aren't bad) it's fine.

Of course, some crap app made in the basement - yes, people will recognise it for what it is, and go find something better. The solution there is to make something good instead, not promo codes

 

[Daveoc64]

This seems like a GREAT idea to me.

I downloaded State Farm's driving application yesterday and it was a serious piece of crap. I looked at the reviews and noticed a pattern: The first reviews were all 5's, including one person who said he worked for State Farm! The rest of the reviews were 1's, 2's, and 3's. I see a pattern here...

Good job, Apple. Keep 'em honest!

So one App out of the 350,000+ on the store should ruin things for people that just want to give an honest review?

 

[psonice]

So one App out of the 350,000+ on the store should ruin things for people that just want to give an honest review?

One app? No. But many "developers" (some, I have no doubt, are not developers but just people looking to make a quick buck by uploading any old crap and using whatever means necessary to get it into the charts) are doing this. If the top 100 charts start to fill up with more crap than decent apps, who'd want to use the store?

The problem is, there's a whole industry growing up around the app store. Not just developers, but marketing companies, some good, others very unscrupulous. And a big industry like this attracts plenty of sharks too.

I've seen apps on the store that are outright clones of other apps (including graphics taken directly from the original app!), evidence that strongly suggests developers (or marketing companies they're paying) are using stolen itunes accounts to buy apps and boost them up the charts, and orchestrated "bomb rival apps with negative reviews while giving your own 5*" schemes.

If it was just one app, I'd fully agree, but it's getting to the stage where a lot of these schemes are commoditised. You can hire many of these schemes, and they're no doubt going to get cheaper and automated. Apple absolutely has to hit them hard before they get out of hand.

 

[Gutwrench]

One can dream but if Apple could now axe all rates and reviews already done with promo code, that would be fun.

Or backfill reviews from promos with a disclosure tag.

 

[Hunnenkoenig]

Promo Dispenser will be back online within a few days!

We have worked hard on a new system and we believe, we can make the best out of the new circumstances and provide developers with even more goodies.

Our new system will use Facebook to get HONEST feedback from our users and it will GUARANTEE viral marketing in a never seen before extent for every app promoted on our site.

Your app will be visible for millions of Facebook users and I think, I don't have to explain, what that means.

I also believe, nobody can say again, we try to game Apple's system, because the site will have NOTHING to do with apple anymore (beside the fact that your app's info, such as icon, screenshots, descriptions and ratings will be scraped in realtime from the US Appstore furthermore).

We try to create the best experience for users AND developers.

Please visit the site in the next few days and register your app and upload your promo codes if you want to be part of the best marketing solution to date.

And all this for free for ever!

 

[Hunnenkoenig]

Just wanted to let you know, that we reopened Promo Dispenser a few hours ago.

We had to start over from scratch, but you can benefit from the new system even more, then previously.

Please visit the site! You will find the link in the OP.

 

[psonice]

Just wanted to let you know, that we reopened Promo Dispenser a few hours ago.

We had to start over from scratch, but you can benefit from the new system even more, then previously.

Please visit the site! You will find the link in the OP.

So now the users basically agree to a little marketing on facebook, and they leave a review there in return for a free app? I think that's actually better - it's good 'word of mouth', and the reviews will in theory be fairer, because now their friends will read it. A quick 5* + "Great" won't work. There's no issue at all about gaming the review system too.

I'm tempted to try it - how many promo codes do you need for an app, any minimum? And does my facebook account need to be active? (I have one, but it's used only for creating facebook compatible apps).

 

[psonice]

Or backfill reviews from promos with a disclosure tag.

That would be hilariously embarrassing for some apps

 

[Hunnenkoenig]

I'm tempted to try it - how many promo codes do you need for an app, any minimum? And does my facebook account need to be active? (I have one, but it's used only for creating facebook compatible apps).

I am glad, you are interested.

We had to start over from scratch, but we hope, that we soon can welcome back those 1500+ developers, 1800+ apps, 9000+ users and 40.000+ promo codes, we had in the previous version.

You need at least 5 promo codes, but we suggest not to upload more than 10 at the same time.

Every user can take only one code again. Maybe we will raise the number later, like in Beta 3.0.

You have to log in into your Facebook acc. You don't need to post anything or so... We just need you to be logged in, when you interact with Promo Dispenser.

You don't even have to visit Facebook.