
iOS developers: Are you shocked by how vengeful users can be in the app store? - amichail
If a user doesn't like an update, he/she might say so and give it a very low rating to try to kill your sales until the issue is addressed.<p>Something seems wrong about this. A single user can have way too much power over sales. And there is a total lack of respect for the developer.<p>Perhaps Apple should allow users to go back to previous versions if they don't like an update.
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Terretta
Reading through the comments from developers on Reddit, I'm shocked at the
cavalier attitude towards users.

One comment talks about a Monkey Island update that destroyed users' saved
games. The comment remarked it didn't seem fair to rate the game down from 4.5
stars to 3 stars for something that would get fixed on the next update.

The app may have been 99 cents, but the user's saved game represents a
significant investment of time (the most fundamental unit of value since all
of us have only a limited supply).

The app may be only 99 cents but costing a user hours or days of investment is
going to get you ranked down, and should.

The other point devs miss is that the absolute ranking of their app doesn't
matter. What matters is that all apps are in the same system. If users rate
your app on delete, they rate everyone else's app on delete too. If you're
getting a lot of bad reviews from that, perhaps more people are deleting your
app than other apps.

This is one reason free apps rank lower -- they're deleted more often, hence
ranked more often, and ranked at delete time, so ranked low. But even so, free
apps are ranked against other free apps, so your stars are only relative to
the other free apps' stars. A star itself is meaningless. How your app does
within the same system as the other apps is what matters.

TL;DR: Delight your users or at least respect their time.

------
Luc
Last week I released a game in the app store that has a button with the
following text:

"Please click here to send me an email, so I can keep improving this game.
Thanks!"

I could probably have formulated that a bit better. The idea was to get some
feedback from players.

The result so far has been over 50 emails (many people sent more than one),
all _completely blank_ except for the default subject and greeting text.

Oops.

~~~
bcl
I actually put some text in my description asking people to email when they
have problems. It has resulted in about 10 responses (all useful) out of 20k+
users.

The App Store just doesn't promote any kind of reasonable engagement between
the users and the developers, which is a totally different experience from
desktop app development. Maybe it is the form factor, or the type of user.

~~~
matwood
This is one of my big complaints about the app store too. I've had one user
get a refund on my app, but Apple wouldn't tell me why or give me any way to
understand what happened. All I got from Apple was the boilerplate, make sure
you app doesn't crash etc...

One thing Apple could do to make the app store a much better experience for
developers is to set up some type of communication exchange between the
developers and users. They could still keep it anonymous, but when Apple
issues an update that breaks my app and then takes over 10 days to approve my
1 line of code fix I'd like to let my users know that it's out of my hands.

I have also tried adding my direct email in the app and have never received an
email from a user. Admittedly, I have a lot less users than you do though.

------
kingofspain
I managed to somewhat alleviate this for a recent app by having a feedback
form in-app, allowing them to vent without going through the hassle of
shutting down, launching iTunes or whatever and submitting a review. Some of
it is still quite shocking though - especially compared to feedback we get
from the web version.

The app is basically a restaurant finder for a city. We have listings for ~600
restaurants, regularly updated, self-written reviews for around 50 of the most
popular/well known and 600ish reader reviews. It also has offers that can be
saved offline like vouchercloud & they have purposely signed up to be _good_
offers (30% off meal, free dessert, 2 for 1 etc). All in all, aside from some
speed issues which infuriate me (but users don't seem to have noticed) I'd say
it's pretty good (I use it myself).

Now with that in mind, some of the feedback we've received has taken me back
somewhat. One user noticed a restaurant that had closed down a couple of
months earlier (it happens - we try to keep the list up to date but the odd
few slip through). He made it clear that he would never use anything by us
EVER again and would encourage his friends and family to shun us too. Another
complained their city wasn't covered (intentionally on our part - it's a very
specific app and very clear in the description). They demanded we get in touch
immediately with how we'd rectify the situation before he "took the matter
further". Several more of the same variety. I forgot them all though the
moment our first "Awesome!" comment came through.

Er, sorry for the essay. My point is basically: yes - I _am_ shocked!

edit: The app is free btw, not sure if that makes a difference re comments on
it!

~~~
auxbuss
I think everyone is shocked when they first encounter the consumer market face
to face. I know I was, and I know colleagues were too.

You come to accept it, though, and not take it personally. Nor try to
rationalise most of it. It's really difficult at first, I remember.

Pick the things you wish to defend, and especially those you wish to attack,
very carefully. The vast majority of petty threats come to nothing, so don't
fan the flames. If someone is persistent, then they likely have a real issue
or they are psychotic.

There's a lot to be learned, personally, from these experiences, and it will
give you a new respect for hardcore sales people.

------
thought_alarm
No, but I am shocked by the sense of entitlement displayed by some mediocre
developers.

Consumer software is hard. If you release an update that your users don't
like, it's entirely your fault.

~~~
flyosity
As an iPhone/iPad developer, the thing that pisses me off the most is when
users leave a low rating and say "when you implement <feature no one cares
about> I'll move it up to 5 stars." This happens all the time. It's blackmail
but on a tiny scale, but it does have a real, negative impact.

Just because an app receives some low ratings it doesn't necessarily mean it's
a bad app or the developer is an idiot. Sometimes users leave bad ratings just
because they can.

~~~
mykoleary
If your app is missing a feature, it is less useful and thus deserves less
stars. If it has more features, it is better and deserves more. This is
another developer entitlement issue. Users aren't going to give you five stars
because your one feature works really super well even though you have five
missing features that don't work at all.

Your app can and should be ranked against other apps that are more fully
featured and usable. If you aren't on the upper side of the curve quit
spending time complaining about it and spend some more time learning and using
that to code your app to be better.

~~~
flyosity
"If it has more features, it is better and deserves more."

Perhaps you're not a mobile developer. Mobile apps are about focused user
experiences. Tight features that make sense within the context of the app. You
wouldn't drop a crossword puzzle into an RSS reader app (even though
newspapers have crossword puzzles... yes I had a user suggest this for my iPad
newspaper app).

When users suggest a feature that should be there and it's not, that's
fantastic, that's a totally different thing. I'm talking about unrelated,
ridiculous requests that make no sense, or they make sense to 1 person in the
entire world: the reviewer.

------
nlogn
We have a user on one of our games who repeatedly reposts his review every few
days complaining about not making it into the high score list (top 100). He
even lists the scores he has gotten that didn't go in. This is all despite the
fact that all of his scores are lower than the lowest high score in the list!
I think we have even posted reviews to try to explain this to the user and to
get him to e-mail us at the support address but he hasn't done that or stopped
posting his review.

I think iOS (and Android) needs to make it easier to interact with customers
and address their issues in the market. There could simply be another section
besides comments called "feedback" or "support". In this section, your posts
are only visible to the devs (and I guess Apple) and you can maintain an
ongoing thread of replies to a post. This would allow users to give feedback
and receive support without filling the reviews with bullshit, and without
having to e-mail the support address (and thus give out their e-mail).

~~~
enjo
Better: With a business review site I worked on previously, we tinkered with a
system that allowed business to openly respond to reviews. It worked really
well. It gave the other side of the story and provided a LOT of engagement
with the user. I believe yelp has adopted something similar now.

We tried it with a private system (rebuttals not viewable by the public) and a
public system. The private system showed FAR less engagement in terms of the
business and the user working out their differences. When it was all done out
in the open the users seemed much more willing to engage with the business
owner. In our test greater than 70% of the conflicts were resolved. In private
the number was much lower (I don't remember the exact number, but it was less
than 40%).

I'd love to see that on the respective markets.

------
wallflower
I'm starting to believe the maxim that the sweet spot for iPhone app sales is
13 to 17 year olds. Because some of them aren't spending their hard-earned 99
cents on an app - but the money from their parents.

Among my non-developer friends, it is shocking and depressing how few of those
who have an iPhone have actually bought a single app. They know I do app
development and yet some religously feel they should never have to pay for an
app or they can find everything they want in the free apps. From personal
observation, the real money in the App Store is from making apps for companies
that want an app of their own, not from selling your own apps.

~~~
clemesha
During the California gold rush, it was those who sold tools and supplies to
the miners that saw the most success.

~~~
jodrellblank
No, no no no. I was people who found gold and became gold mining millionaires
who had the _most_ success.

It was tools and supplies providers who had the biggest _chance of success_
(lowest risk business plan).

[The biggest successes on the App store will be the massively popular hits.
The easiest chance of decent money (smaller success) will be contracting work
for companies who want their own apps].

------
tstegart
I think developers are shocked because for many it is their first time dealing
with the consumer masses out there in an online world. Any small business
owner who is on Yelp knows that people can be really, really mean. Often
without reason or cause. The same goes for App Store reviews. Some make
completely no sense, or to a logical person, are unsupported by facts. It has
to be really frustrating to see some of this stuff out there. I think Apple
needs to revamp their review system. Maybe they should talk to Amazon about
reviews. I find those reviews more useful.

~~~
kingofspain
Asking for reviews on deleting an app is also maybe not the best way of
getting balanced feedback. Though I hear rumours that recent updates have
stopped this.

~~~
Zev
It isn't a rumor. It really has stopped. A few months ago, with iOS 4.

------
dpcan
I used to stress over the bad comments and ratings. Now I have so many ratings
on my apps, and so many comments, one guy doesn't have any impact. I've
actually had my best sales day when a terrible comment was the first comment
on the "lite" version of the app.

Also, the lite/free versions get really hateful and terrible comments often.
The people who like the app seem to rate, but not comment much of the time.

Long story short, I just don't sweat it anymore. I don't even think people
read (or at least believe) comments, especially the ones that are just mean.

I just try to build a great app, take the good with the bad, dwell on the
positive comments, look for insights into problems in the bad comments, then
ignore the rubbish.

------
tzs
I don't have an app in the store yet, but from what I've read of the reviews
of apps I've downloaded, I must conclude that a huge fraction of the people
who post reviews are idiots.

Seriously, idiots. If there is an app named "Foo App", which does Foo, and the
description says that it does Foo and only Foo, it is not uncommon to find a
review that says "This app does Foo. It does Foo perfectly, but it does not do
Bar. I want Bar too" and that reviewer gives the app 1 star. Bar is something
big enough that it would logically be an app of its own.

------
tialys
It occurs to me after reading this, that I am just as much a part of the
problem as all of the overly negative reviewers. I have dozens of apps that I
think are quite usable, and I don't think I've submitted a good review for any
of them because... well they work! I think I'm going to make it a goal this
week to write some good reviews for apps I use all the time.

~~~
gmac
I think low ratings on apparently decent free apps are mostly down to users
not reading the app's description, finding it doesn't do what they (semi-
randomly) imagined it would, and marking it poorly in the pre-iOS 4 rate-on-
delete pop-up.

My most recent app politely and unobtrusively asks to be reviewed after 10
uses, on the thinking that users who've stuck it this long probably don't hate
it. I forget which other app I learned this trick from, but it seems to have
helped a little.

------
rbritton
I received an email this morning from someone thinking of buying my app but
saying this: "Yours seems like it is headed in the right direction, but I am
unwilling to shell out $15 considering the UI and stability issues that some
users are reporting."

People were complaining in the reviews when the app was getting killed by the
memory watchdog (i.e., "crashing") when they were trying to use photos larger
than the iPad's RAM allowed. In the in-store version I put in a hard limit to
the pixel size it would process, and now they're complaining in the reviews
that it refuses to load their photos (my specific phrasing in the error is
"exceeds iPad memory limit").

Of the users that have posted negative reviews, less than 5% have contacted me
through the support line.

------
eli
When the Google market was new I remember reading views for a compass app that
were many variations of "This game sux!!! all it does is spin around!!!"

------
dbrannan
How about if users could rate other user's comments? For instance, if someone
posted something totally out of character for the app, then other commenters
could rate that comment as valid, invalid, and leave additional comments
explaining why that users is a troll.

~~~
apike
The desktop app store has this now - it has links for "Was this review
helpful? Yes/No" and sorts by Most Helpful by default.

------
Somnion
<http://twitter.com/hotdogsladies/status/21757786483>

------
tstegart
I think there's a business opportunity here folks. An App that reviews apps,
BETTER than the App Store. Obviously its needed, since consumers want to know
how an app works and if it has bugs BEFORE they buy it, and business want
constructive criticism AND to know that morons won't be allowed to contaminate
the system with reviews that don't make sense/are stupid, etc. Just framing it
out in my head, you would need a way for developers or users to add their app
to the system (saving you work). You would probably have a vote system (aka
Facebook's like button) to catch the people who are too lazy to write (users
could even do it from inside the app they're using if the developer puts in
the code. This would also catch more users who like the app as opposed to
being negative). You would have a bug system so complaints about bugs don't
clog up the reviews, and can be deleted once the bug is fixed instead of
staying around forever. You could have an Amazon-like review system, where
users vote up the useful reviews, and vote down the useless garbage. Lastly,
you could make money via ads, sponsored search results (just like
Download.com), or with developers paying to interact with the system (ie. get
alerts when a negative review comes out, when their rating drops, when it
rises to the top, etc).

There, there's a winter project for someone.

------
hopeless
I'm only starting to develop iPhone apps but as a user I find the
review/rating process completely broken. Rating an app seems to take far too
long and interrupts my work, so I never do it. The only time a user will be
sufficiently motivated to rate your app is when they really hate it.

On the flip-side, when you search the app store the results don't appear to be
sorted by rating so I wonder what effect it really has

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siglesias
Here's a question: how come the top paid apps on average have higher ratings
than top free apps? (<http://moby.to/dwvgvr>)

I asked a marketing professor that I work for and he told me that his
hypothesis was the level of thinking users did before they paid for something
versus when they bought it for free was different. You probably want to make
sure an app is worthwhile before you purchase it, by carefully considering its
functionality, reading the reviews and so on. A free app doesn't elicit this
kind of care before purchase. My professor said it was the same with student
ratings: required courses tend to have poorer reviews than electives,
partially due to the level of choice the student had in picking the course.

I agree to an extent, but there should be a counteracting force: feeling
ripped off. Why should users feel so upset about a _free_ app they downloaded
that they would take the time to write a negative review, a review they
probably didn't read before downloading themselves? Wouldn't users of _paid_
apps feel more compelled to leave a negative review if they felt it wasn't
worth the money? Thus, paid app users would probably be more incentivized to
leave a negative review, even if they are less likely to feel negatively about
the app.

Nonetheless, the empirical observation is that for the most downloaded apps,
free apps are more poorly reviewed than paid apps. Might a third (decisive)
factor be that app store shoppers are divided (generally) into extremely price
sensitive and not price sensitive (meaning, free app buyers and paid app
buyers)? This hypothesis might be supported by the fact that the free app
reviews tend to have a different quality of language from paid app reviews (as
you can read in the reddit article linked here). I personally feel that paid
apps in general are of higher quality than free apps, so I think paying a
small amount for apps, almost always (with the exception of Facebook, Twitter,
Netflix, etc...), is worth the reduction in noise from sifting through free
apps. My experience with these apps tends to be good, and I use the apps
longer and download them less frequently then I might if I were a serial free
app downloader (I think). The fact that free apps are more poorly reviewed
doesn't help either.

The reason that it's important to understand these differences is that the
decision to make it free or not might also be a marketing decision. Your goal
with an app might be looking to make an in-app sale down the road to the user,
to promote another product, or develop your brand as a developer. It could
turn out that users in your target demographic don't "trust" free apps (in
general) and thus don't download them, and you might harm your brand by
offering them for free. You might also get a user base that doesn't understand
your app before downloading, then leaves harsh negative reviews, thus also
hurting your brand. Lastly, these users might be more likely to delete your
app after a few days, and then move onto another free app, hurting your
prospects of making a down-the-road sale or earning advertising revenues.
Thoughts?

~~~
enjo
What I've found really interesting is that I've noticed that users of free
apps have the same exact psychology as someone who paid. In that a user of a
free app feels equally as "ripped off" as someone who paid for it.

I asked my wife about this (she's a behavioral researcher) and she's not
surprised. There is apparently some research that suggests this is the case.
She's out of town right now or I'd see if I could dig up the actual abstracts.
It's something that definitely needs to be studied more, but I think there is
something to it. Particularly among the under-30 crowd.

------
Zev
Not really. If your app is free and has something that vaguely resembles
usefulness, you'll likely get a decent number of downloads. And if it reliably
crashes, you'll get a decent number of people telling you as much. They
usually seem willing to come back and retry the app on an update, though.

------
ashleyreddy
App store is the only game in town. The first bad reviews will make you want
to jump off a building. Best thing to do is to realize that your in this for
the long term. So suck it up and keep improving.

------
ahoyhere
Anyone who's ever done freelance or retail sales will tell you that customers
who pay more - who are willing to pay more - are, on average, way easier to
deal with, more respectful, and more grateful than customers who buy only
cheap or inexpensive items. There's only the odd tyrannical rich person
outlier, who thinks they "own you." They don't come close to balancing out the
hordes of cheapo customers who think you owe them.

That's just one part of the issue, of course. The App Store is horrible in so
many ways -- the intelligence of the audience, the savvy, the inability to
communicate other ways, the likelihood that any given App buyer has probably
been screwed by other, lesser quality apps before. Etc.

~~~
patio11
We need to keep repeating this until people understand: charging more gets you
better customers.

