

How to get 4 to 5 stars on the App Store - rkischuk
http://amro.co/how-to-get-4-to-5-stars-on-the-app-store

======
statictype
The best way to get feedback from users would be for Apple to provide, as part
of the iOS API, a widget that lets you do the rating _right there_ in the app
itself.

When prompted 'Would you like to rate this app?', if you choose 'Yes', show a
ratings widget and comment box right there in the dialog without booting you
to the App Store.

~~~
extension
The ratings are probably more meaningful for requiring that users go out of
their way to rate. Make it too routine and the courtesy fours drown out the
users with strong opinions.

Edit for the downvoters: this is me speculating on how the ratings work in
practice. Whether the system is fair or serves your own interests are both
seperate issues.

~~~
statictype
I disagree. There have been several times when the 'Rate this app' modal box
came up and I wanted to give a good rating for it but couldn't be bothered
because it sent me out to the AppStore when what I really wanted to be doing
was playing that game/using that app.

~~~
extension
Look at it from Apple's perspective. They want at least some great apps to
float to the top and terrible apps to be tarred and feathered, while bothering
users as little as possible. They _don't_ particularly care about giving every
app an accurate rating or capturing every user's opinion. Thus, they don't
have much reason to push users to rate more apps.

------
latitude
I am using similar idea in one of my Windows apps -- it has a one-time
notification that prompts the user to join a mailing list or subscribe to the
Twitter feed [1]. After much experimenting I have converged to the following
criteria:

    
    
      The app has been up for at least 5 minutes 
    	&&
      It was first run at least 7 days ago
    	&&
      It (executed primary function) no more than 12 hours ago
    	&&
      It (executed primary function) at least 3 times
    	&&
      There was some user activity in last 60 seconds
    

The app is of a service nature, it runs in a background, so some conditions
are unique to that, but the general idea is the same - talk to users that are
engaged and happy rather than to all of them. Seems to be working really well
so far.

[1] <http://bvckup.com/tmp/notification.png>

~~~
metachris
Appirater (the lib mentioned in the post) does it like this:

 _"every time the user launches your app, Appirater will see if they’ve used
the app for 30 days and launched it at least 15 times. If they have, they’ll
be asked to rate the app, and then be taken to your app’s review page in the
App Store. If you release a new version of your app, Appirater will again wait
until the new version has been used 15 times for 30 days and then prompt the
user again for another review. Optionally, you can adjust the days to wait and
the launch number by changing DAYS_UNTIL_PROMPT and LAUNCHES_UNTIL_PROMPT in
Appirater.h."_

Tweaking those two settings lets you target any selection of engaged users
(eg. 15 launches in 30 days will reach primarily very engaged users).

------
siglesias
Another thing that should be mentioned is timing. I noticed that Cut the Rope
put in a request right at the end of the first group of levels, and to boot,
they made the final level of the group really easy to get you feeling smart
and euphoric. Sure, 5 stars!

While I'm not sure what the "euphoric moment" will be in my app, it's very
wise to time your reminders to be placed in strategic areas associated with
positive emotion: the end of a task, a major completion.

------
a1k0n
I couldn't help but parse that as "App pirater" and was thoroughly confused as
to how that would help your sales.

~~~
apayan
When I was thinking up a name for it, I was _trying_ to be witty and have
something along the lines of iRate, which led me to 'App i rate'. Then I added
'er' at the end to make it flow (or so I thought). As you've noted it's not
the greatest name out there, but I didn't want to change it after all the
linking and discussion that had already occurred based on the blog post.

------
marcc
Apple has changed the review process to be less biased. Not sure when it was
(somewhere around 4.0 launch last year) but they no longer prompt users to
rate an app during the uninstall process.

I too really dislike being asked to rate an app. Especially since there's
never a good time for this. Most of the time I've see this on my phone is when
I launch an app for the 5th or 6th time. I launched the app to use it, not to
review it.

We all hate the bad reviews. But don't start doing this. It's just bad user
experience.

~~~
apayan
You can actually control when the prompt occurs in Appirater, with the hope
being that the developer will know when to allow the pop up to actually
appear. It's not perfect, but it's the best solution I could think up given
the constraints of the App Store.

------
awolf
We saw a huge boost in number of reviews, overall rating, and sales when we
started to solicit users in TapTyping (went from 3.5 to 4.5 stars). We made
sure to only ask people once they had typed 2300 characters which equates to
3-4 speed tests or 1.5 typing lessons. Obviously the solicitation critera will
be different for every app.

Not sure why you need a 3rd party library to do this though, it's pretty
straight forward.

------
haribilalic
I _hate_ when apps request a review like this. It's worse when they ask
repeatedly.

~~~
16s
If the app is useful to you and it is free and not inundating you with ads, a
positive review is the least you could do in return. It seems reasonable.

~~~
weixiyen
Unfortunately, it doesn't change the fact that users hate it.

~~~
eps
The question is if they hate this enough to actually go and rate the app, but
give it a negative review. And I don't think they do. Those who are ticked off
would simply not bother rating, so no harm done by asking.

------
gohat
Writing from the developers side, this type of functionality is extremely
useful. Many products are review driven, and getting reviews is not easy.
Reviews tend to fuel traffic and demand especially in the App store context.

But as a user, I strongly dislike being spammed. Here, what seems nice is that
it waits until 30 days use before asking and only asks once per version, which
is good for multiple reasons. (I'd likely personally keep it to once ever
though)

------
thirdsun
I'm often very surprised by the amount of bad reviews users provide just
because of minor issues or unrealistic user expectations. Developers have no
chance to explain those, often unnecessary, reviews. Of course you have the
usual reviewers that couldn't be bothered to rate anything unless they have a
problem with the app, but additionally there's such an amount of ignorance
that one feels like reading youtube comments.

Right now the official twitter app is being downrated into oblivion here in
germany (1,5 stars) due to the introduction of that trend bar. From one of the
best twitter clients to One and a half star. Really? You don't have to like
that bar and most people certainly don't but does it affect your twitter
experience in such a bad way that those one star ratings are justified. I
doubt it.

That said, app reviews seem to be used as kind of punishment by users instead
of providing helpful feedback.

Therefor i can see that asking users who frequently use your app to rate it
makes a lot of sense from a developers perspective. Additionally those
developers should have the option to provide highlighted answers to reviews or
weigh in on unjustified user statements.

------
hung
I've implemented something similar on my apps, and I have to say, it works.
Most users (including myself) simply won't give a good review unsolicited. If
the request pops up and they like the app, it won't be that much of a nuisance
(they can make it go away forever).

The trick is getting the timing right. Wait long enough that they've used it a
few times and have actually had a chance to form an opinion. Otherwise it's
just annoying.

------
rookie
I also had awesome results from asking for reviews using appirater. I have
mine set for 20 days and 20 uses. (They will not be asked to review until they
have been using it for at least 20 days and have used the app at least 20
times)

I now have over 50 reviews for the current version with a 4-5 star average.

[http://itunes.apple.com/ee/app/icross-wod-
free/id397702723?m...](http://itunes.apple.com/ee/app/icross-wod-
free/id397702723?mt=8)

------
Huppie
Appirater looks like a great tool to get good reviews. Inspired by this
blogpost (and because I don't make iOS apps) I decided to create an Android
port for it this morning as a gift to myself and HN of course ;-)

Feedback is greatly appreciated.

<https://github.com/Huppie/Appirater-for-Android>

------
metachris
Here is a simple Android implementation:
[http://www.androidsnippets.com/prompt-engaged-users-to-
rate-...](http://www.androidsnippets.com/prompt-engaged-users-to-rate-your-
app-in-the-android-market-appirater)

------
jzting
I recently added Appirater in an update to one of my apps and I believe has
really helped gather positive reviews.

Getting the timing right is a bit tricky - I've opted to prompt the user after
ten uses at a point where interaction with the app won't be obstructed by the
alert.

As a side note, I think that the alerts should be shown only once. I was using
another app that would prompt every other time to rate and the default dismiss
button was "Remind me later"...very annoying.

------
xmr
So true. I added code to ask regular users to rate the app and received a lot
of 4/5 star reviews. Ask happy customers and they'll willingly give your app a
good rating.

------
solipsist
Any reason why the "TO" in the title is capitalized?

~~~
rkischuk
No reason. Thanks for pointing it out. Fixed.

------
aneth
For CribQ (housing maps from Craigslist) we prompt for ratings. It sucks to
bug users but it also sucks to build a great product and not have people find
it. To the people complaining about the experience, think of the experience of
the developer to balance that feeling out.

We've also had issues with what seem to be targetted 1 star ratings with no
reviews. Every new version that comes out we instantly get a bunch of these,
and I have suspicions about who they come from. Almost all written reviews are
4 or 5 stars.

~~~
khairulzaman
Have you looked into iOS 3 users? If I'm not mistaken, in iOS 3, deleting an
app prompts the user to rate the app and if your update borks the app for
them, they're probably going to delete and rate it one star.

------
kahawe
I remember a friend of mine was invited to write a chapter for a Java book for
a very popular, very successful and prestigious publisher; the book wasn't
even out yet but had a page on amazon and they made him ask all his friends
and family to write a positive and "believable" review like "it is an
excellent introduction to blablabla, this and that thing could be better/more
detailed but overall best book ever!!!111"

They justified that by "well, yea those are sort of fake review but everyone
does it so it is ok"

------
timerickson
Step 3 is: Don't put obtrusive ads on top of your content every other minute
and call it a feature. _Ahem #dickbar_

