

Is the App Store Review System Defective by Design? 
 - bprater
http://www.smartphonetoday.com/articles/2008/8/2008-8-25-Is-the-Apple.html

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bprater
I love the App Store, but folks who "review" stuff that haven't bought it
("wow, the price is too high, so I'm going to give it 1 star!" or "this app
should be free") drives me absolutely insane. In a straight-jacket, on the
13th floor of the nut house, in a padded-room, insane.

~~~
silencio
This is weird, cause I have talked about this (ugh, over twitter) with some
developers. I think reviews should be weighted, non-purchasers getting less
weight than the purchasers. (Among other improvements, like sorting by date
specifically, and by version reviewed, showing whether or not they purchased
the app.)

Some comments are approaching inanity, but there are going to be excellent
reviewers who didn't purchase it and there are going to be other reviewers
pointing out something interesting about the application that other purchasers
might want to know before buying.

For example, my boyfriend plays the game de Blob more often than I do, and can
write a _way_ better review than I can - personally I can't even be bothered
to write a review or play the game for more than 30 minutes total...and it's
on my iPhone paid for by me. In fact, he loves all the games on my phone more
than I do, and so I basically never have a phone to use when he's over and not
actively busy doing something else. That's already one example...I could also
be beta testing an app and writing about how some version I tested was
awesome. There's also the case where there might be an app that is
significantly better than that that other people might compare to.

You might say that doesn't happen often, but the app store
organization+search+review sorting and all need a lot of work since
applications are different from music. Until Apple makes it easier for
shoppers in that regard, reviews regardless of the origin can come in handy.

All that, and that if reviews are only from purchasers, the reviews are going
to be extremely skewed. Honestly, have you _seen_ some reviews by so-called
purchasers, it's all different depending on what they expect and their
familiarity with the application and more. I'll be unhappy at a purchaser-only
review limitation, even more than at what's going on right now.

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netcan
Bring up an interesting point.

With Amazon, you can see a reviewers other reviews. A good thing to do might
be to identify those who have purchased the product, even if you don't exclude
those that haven't.

