Apple Seeking to Increase Participation in App Store Ratings?

[nazaar]

Very Disappointed

I don't care about ratings just fix it so I can have CP and Forward on SMS.

 

[jlanuez]

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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.

yeah, rating something as you kick it to the curb seams flawed.

 

[Rybold]

Statistics considered, wouldn't this cause the rating of an App to plummet? If 90% of the people that are rating the App are people that are deleting the App from their phone, then 90% of the ratings would be bad. But what about the million people that are choosing to keep the App?

 

[iPhoneJoe]

ya I don't see this going over too well

 

[iSamurai]

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

What better way to drive down ratings. Fail.

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

yeah, probably just after you've downloaded, and then you can rate it in iTunes. doing ratings and commeting directly on iPhone is hideous.


and I guess there'll only be copy-paste in iPhone 3.0 Doesn't matter to me (sigh), if Apple releases a new iPhone sometimes H1-Q3 next year I'm ready to upgrade from my 1st gen iPhone

 

[kajitox]

Statistics considered, wouldn't this cause the rating of an App to plummet? If 90% of the people that are rating the App are people that are deleting the App from their phone, then 90% of the ratings would be bad. But what about the million people that are choosing to keep the App?

And 90% of the people deleted it for a reason. Right?

 

[theotherguy]

This App Was So Good I Deleted It!! 5 Stars!!

 

[milo]

This seems like a really bad idea.

Aren't they just encouraging the people who hate an app and delete it to vote, but not encouraging those who like it and keep it?

 

[milo]

And 90% of the people deleted it for a reason. Right?

Read his post again. A tiny fraction of people deleted it, but while most of them voted, the far larger group of people who kept it were never asked to vote. Seems like an odd plan to me.

 

[kajitox]

Read his post again. A tiny fraction of people deleted it, but while most of them voted, the far larger group of people who kept it were never asked to vote. Seems like an odd plan to me.

Ah, I see. Seems like they just have to get a way to entice a hopefully equal amount of people who keep the app to say something about it...

 

[Highland]

I agree with Arn here, if you are deleting something it means it wasn't any good. As such it is maybe the most realistic way of rating an app. Good apps stay and bad apps go. It is as good a benchmark as any especially for paid apps. I paid $10 but deleted it. Now why would that be? For free apps it doesn't matter but if people are deleting apps they paid for it is very telling.

Couldn't agree more.

I think the extra ratings will be a good thing, even if a lot of them are negative. Also, we don't know if Apple are planning a few other pop-up in places where users are more likely to give a positive rating (after 20 launches etc).

I'd also like better app search results in iTunes, rather than the current "iTunes is for music, but we've hacked it to work with video and apps" we have now. Maybe getting more ranking data is part of that.

I'm sure Apple realise that they can't stop average apps from being published, but they can make it easier for users to pick good apps.

 

[firewood]

This idea intrigues me. My new app Informant has sold over 200 units in the last week, but i have ZERO reviews.

Marketing idea: Pay several friends to buy and review your apps.

Hopefully good friends...

 

[Project]

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.

I disagree. I think you are jumping to conclusions based on their neglect of features you want.

Look at the new features in 2.2

- podcast downloads straight from the iPhone; generates no money for Apple
- Google Transit; generates no money
- Google Street View; generates no money
- Maps location sharing; generates no money


2.1

- Genius playlist creation on the device; generates no money
- Wipe data after 10 incorrect passcode entries; generates no money
- Triple click microphone; generates no money
- Better iPod features; generates no money


Nothing glitzy about all of the above. All welcome features.

 

[hugo7]

Isn't it possible that these ratings are not going to be sent to the iTunes Store, and are simply equivalent to the way a user can rate their favorite songs in their song collection and have the number of stars show up next to the listings in iTunes?

Encouraging people to rate their apps this way would open the door to having the Genius feature make future app recommendations for you.

For this to work (as per for the feature for music tracks), the rating system would be available for all installed apps regardless of whether they are about to be deleted.

Like many have said here, the idea is an interesting one but could be flawed especially if a user rating score is so easily transmitted to the app store, to sit alongside other (well written) app reviews with no differentiation.

 

[gilkisson]

I disagree. I think you are jumping to conclusions based on their neglect of features you want.

Look at the new features in 2.2

- podcast downloads straight from the iPhone; generates no money for Apple
- Google Transit; generates no money
- Google Street View; generates no money
- Maps location sharing; generates no money


2.1

- Genius playlist creation on the device; generates no money
- Wipe data after 10 incorrect passcode entries; generates no money
- Triple click microphone; generates no money
- Better iPod features; generates no money


Nothing glitzy about all of the above. All welcome features.

Not jumping to conclusions at all -- and of course, I'm talking about the features I want, what would be the point otherwise?

I think Genius is all about "encouraging" users to purchase more from iTunes, isn't it? Of course, there's money there...

And of your 2.2 list, I might consider direct-download of podcasts to be productive -- although, I've not heard that rumor yet. Until 2.2 is official, that whole list is fairly speculative, isn't it?

And yes, it's all pretty much glitz, defined as "extravagant showiness", "ostentation". See this link. Transit might be useful to some. But not, IMHO, as useful as Push/CP/MMS might be.

Constructive criticism does not need to invoke the "protect the anthill" myrmidonic defense mechanism. I just think that before we get more fluff and glitter, we get just a few more chunks of meat and taters.

 

[iCantwait]

jelly car is so a 5***** game

 

[Rondogg96]

Wirelessly posted (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)

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?

I really don't think I'd use Google Street View very often. Then again I might so I guess I won't know until I've tried it out.

 

[alindsay]

Take a deep breath...

Ok everyone, just take a deep breath and keep everything in perspective. As a developer, I am seriously concerned that the number of crappy apps on the app store will prevent the users from finding the good apps. Any thing that works to improve the situation is all to the good.

Also, this is a beta release, not telling what will be released. Also we don't know where else you get a chance/prompt to rate the application. What if you are given a one time chance after a certain number of uses, or a certain time period has passed? We don't know, but I applaud Apple with trying to come up with some way to get people to leave reviews.

Of course, if Apple's solution sucks, I'll let them know, but I am willing to give them a chance. After all, they seem to have figured out how to sell a few songs on iTunes....

 

[Highland]

Ok everyone, just take a deep breath and keep everything in perspective. As a developer, I am seriously concerned that the number of crappy apps on the app store will prevent the users from finding the good apps. Any thing that works to improve the situation is all to the good.

Also, this is a beta release, not telling what will be released. Also we don't know where else you get a chance/prompt to rate the application. What if you are given a one time chance after a certain number of uses, or a certain time period has passed? We don't know, but I applaud Apple with trying to come up with some way to get people to leave reviews.

Couldn't agree more.

It's in everyone's interest that good apps are easier to find and bad apps become harder to find. We're all drowning in the sea of crappy developers trying to make a quick buck... and it's only going to get worse over time if nothing is done soon.

 

[kajitox]

Couldn't agree more.

It's in everyone's interest that good apps are easier to find and bad apps become harder to find. We're all drowning in the sea of crappy developers trying to make a quick buck... and it's only going to get worse over time if nothing is done soon.

True, I already feel like I'm drowning.

 

[aperture01]

Mms!!!

Hey Jobs here is a good one...

HOW ABOUT FLIPPIN' MMS!!!! These new features are great, but geez, viewmymessage.com makes me want to take my phone and throw it into fast moving traffic. I love my phone but geez if your at least not going to add MMS flippin' make the bloody website work right!!!

I tell all my friends how awesome my phone is, and i'm being such a great salesman for them. But when a friend comes up and asks me if I got there "funny" multimedia message I have to make up a lie that I didn't get it for some reason. They look at me like "What your iPhone doesen't even do that?" I mean come on!!! I'm tired of being embarrassed.

 

[Highland]

HOW ABOUT FLIPPIN' MMS!!!!

Sorry to say it, but MMS is a bridging tech... it only exists because the telcos want to make money from users sending pictures and because a lot of phones didn't have email.

Most phones except the really basic ones have email now. I think you'll see MMS phased out over the next few years. Also, it's a very limited... it doesn't do anywhere as much as email.

So if you *did* get MMS on the iPhone, it'd only really be useful for a couple of years. If Apple did implement it then remove it in 2 years, there'd be millions of users complaining. Much easier to just never implement it in the first place.

I'm actually really glad Apple didn't implement MMS. It'll be good for the mobile industry to move on from it. File "MMS" under "WAP" (another bridging tech).

 

[Ronaldinho10]

Not jumping to conclusions at all -- and of course, I'm talking about the features I want, what would be the point otherwise?

I think Genius is all about "encouraging" users to purchase more from iTunes, isn't it? Of course, there's money there...

And of your 2.2 list, I might consider direct-download of podcasts to be productive -- although, I've not heard that rumor yet. Until 2.2 is official, that whole list is fairly speculative, isn't it?

And yes, it's all pretty much glitz, defined as "extravagant showiness", "ostentation". See this link. Transit might be useful to some. But not, IMHO, as useful as Push/CP/MMS might be.

Constructive criticism does not need to invoke the "protect the anthill" myrmidonic defense mechanism. I just think that before we get more fluff and glitter, we get just a few more chunks of meat and taters.

You do know Android and Blackberry are also missing features, go and read some of their forums, not all is rosy there.

 

[gilkisson]

You do know Android and Blackberry are also missing features, go and read some of their forums, not all is rosy there.

Of course they are. There is no such thing as the Perfect Product, be it hardware, software, or tacos.

When compared to the BB Storm, the iPhone is far superior. Comparing the iPhone to the Android-powered G1 is unfair, as the G1 is pretty much a rough draft.

All I'm saying is, as wonderful as the iPhone is, it could use just one or two more core features -- and silliness like fighting through a review process in order to be allowed to delete an app isn't one of those cores.

Why some folks equate iCriticism to be == to iCondemnation is beyond me.