
Why the Facebook App Is Rated Below 2 Stars - martin_tipgain
http://blog.testmunk.com/why-the-facebook-app-is-rated-below-2-stars/
======
coldcode
As an iOS developer (and long time developer of apps dating back to early
MacOS) I find it indefensible to have so many app crashes. This statements "As
you may know, Facebook does not have big QA teams…we believe that developers
are responsible for their own code, and they’re supposed to write the tests to
do that." is total bullshit. I've seen this happen in multiple environments
(big and small) over the years and it always results in crap results. QA/Test
engineers are professionals at doing testing and should be testing
continuously since day 1. It's nice the developers try to produce good code,
but expecting them to be professional QA is ludicrous. My last large iOS app
(previous employer) had a crash rate of 0.17% and we had awesome QA people who
wouldn't let anything go out the door unless they were happy.

~~~
forrestthewoods
It'd be a lot more manageable if Apple could simply provide memory guarantees
to apps. It's not an unreasonable request. Having to close other apps or
reboot the device to get an app to launch is frustrating for developers and
users alike.

~~~
coldcode
It's hard to do on mobile devices, there is no paging like a desktop system
would have. I rarely have this issue though, maybe there are some apps that
have more issues than others, or maybe it happens more on older devices. I do
think iPhones need 2GB now instead of just 1.

~~~
forrestthewoods
I was going to include a snarky comment about wanting iOS to graduate to a big
boy memory system like a big boy OS but decided to be more polite. :)

Rule of thumb is an app can allocate approximate 50% of total device memory
before crashing. But there's no hard limit and it depends on your allocation
pattern. If you request too much too fast it'll crash as well. Sometimes you
have to let it fail and spin for 3 seconds trying to allocate again hoping
it'll go through. Sometimes it will and sometimes it won't!

------
rebootthesystem
This is a general comment. I am not defending Facebook at all.

One of the problems with feedback systems is that they truly fail to present a
balanced view of the user or customer base. The people with the motivation and
drive to post reviews and feedback in ecosystems such as the App Store and
Amazon are those with problems. And so the rating that is produced isn't a
true reflection of how well an app is received or how good a product might be.

We happen to have both a physical product business operating on Amazon and an
app business on the Apple App Store. Based on this experience I'll say most
apps and products receive feedback from 1 out of 500 to 1,000 people who
purchase the product. Put another way, the rating figure is based on the
opinions of approximately 0.1% of users, if that. And it is also far more
likely that the review-posting population is highly biased in favor of people
experiencing difficulties.

In other words, based on my experience, I think these rating systems that
consist of a linear vote count equation are deeply flawed as they fail to
capture reality in any measurable way.

~~~
throwawaymsft
Review systems need "page rank" or at least some way to filter based on
whether you, personally, found a review helpful.

I don't care if a 10 year old rated an app 1 star because they didn't like the
colors, or a new computer user was confused by an interface. I want to know if
people like me -- with my experience level -- found the app difficult.

Movie reviews follow the same thing, it's hard to look at overall ratings. I
want to know the opinions of people like me.

~~~
kevb
App updates also throw off reviews quite a bit, an update that changes a
behavior (or color like you said) is likely to receive a large amount of
negative reviews, just because users were used to the old way. These reviews
are potentially valuable information for other users of the previous version.
However it's mostly irrelevant to new users.

------
choward
For me the one reason I had to uninstall the app and rate it 1 star were the
notifications. Most of the notifications that are actually useful you can
toggle on/off (like receiving a message). However, this particular useless one
is not toggleable and occurred at least once a day.

Asking me if I know somebody is not a "notification". My phone should not
vibrate or make a noise because Facebook wants to friend more people. There
are other annoying notifications, but this is the main one that pisses me off.

------
Osmium
Compare this to 'Paper', Facebook's _other_ iOS app which has 4 stars:

[https://www.facebook.com/paper](https://www.facebook.com/paper)

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paper-stories-from-
facebook/...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paper-stories-from-
facebook/id794163692?mt=8)

Not only is it a great app, but it's also given back to the iOS community in
the form of several great open source projects:

[https://facebook.github.io/origami/](https://facebook.github.io/origami/)
[https://github.com/facebook/pop](https://github.com/facebook/pop)
[http://asyncdisplaykit.org](http://asyncdisplaykit.org)

I find it fascinating that Facebook has two independent iOS efforts, and that
while one is clearly better than the other, they seem content to pursue both
apps. (Notably, Paper is still not available outside the US–I use Papers
personally and can't imagine going back to the default app which just feels a
bit lifeless in comparison, crashes/bugginess aside.)

~~~
jfernandez
Doesn't the 4 stars also speak to the focus Paper has versus the 'catchall' UX
of Facebook's primary app?

------
Haul4ss
All these people hate Facebook, but they still use Facebook. How many of those
one-star reviews were written by people who _still_ launch the app 20 times a
day? What incentive does Facebook really have to change their QA practices?

~~~
im3w1l
Realistically, the main reason people use facebook is network effects. They
will put up with some amount of bullshit.

But the flipside of that is that if it becomes too bad, then the first people
who start leaving weakens the network effects and cause more people to leave,
leading to a chain reaction and a swift collapse.

Facebook's incentive is to prevent such a collapse.

~~~
onewaystreet
Facebook released Messenger _for_ this reason. Facebook saw that people were
starting to use Facebook less and stand-alone apps more (Instagram, WhatsApp,
SnapChat, etc.). This is also the reason why Facebook now owns two out of
those three.

~~~
SixSigma
Perhaps also because FB on mobile is more advert intrusive with sometimes 75%
of screen space taken over by ads that are disguised as user content.

It runs me off the mobile app, I use the web interface.

Also the huge list of Permissions it requires.

------
tstonez
My 1st guess was forcing everyone to download and use Messenger

~~~
smackfu
I still don't understand why people hate Messenger so much. It works fine for
me, indistinguishable from when it was included in the main Facebook app.

~~~
dragonwriter
Messenger is much more intrusive to the whole phone experience than the
Facebook messaging functionality that was included in the app. Though, to be
honest, even that went downhill in the same direction as Messenger -- though
not as far -- before it was removed and messenger made mandatory.

------
CanSpice
The biggest takeaway from this story is "The absence of a specific QA function
may be hampering the company as well." QA is vital. A proper QA department
sees the forest and the trees. Developers see the trees (or, in some cases,
just the branches). Having proper QA means that John doesn't accidentally
break something that Julie was working on, because they run regression tests.
It's quite astonishing that QA isn't a separate team at Facebook for their iOS
apps.

------
laoba
I noticed a lot of low ratings once Facebook hid the "Most Recent" version of
the feed to force you to take 3 steps.

Previously they had an easy way of switching between the two all within the
first view that showed by default, now it's just a pain in the ass and it
seems like none of the devs actually use it.

------
inthewoods
Facebook is clearly a big believer in test automation - to the extent that
they do not appear to believe (by their approach and hiring) in manual testing
- big mistake imho. Best approach from my point of view is a portfolio
approach that includes automation and manual testing.

------
fleshweasel
Facebook has a reputation as a battery hog on iOS.

[http://www.scottyloveless.com/blog/2014/the-ultimate-
guide-t...](http://www.scottyloveless.com/blog/2014/the-ultimate-guide-to-
solving-ios-battery-drain)

I just use the website now. Somehow it manages to offer chat as well as news
feed without displacing me to another domain, or whatever is analogous to
opening up an entirely separate app.

I just don't buy that spinning off messenger was good for customers,
especially considering they have really failed to create a good experience all
around.

~~~
oesmith
Same here. I'm using the mobile web versions of Facebook, Twitter and G+ on my
iPad and iPhone and I'm not (yet) missing any of the features of the native
apps.

~~~
_xander
I think this might be the start of the shift from apps back to the web. Why
clutter your phone with notifications, saved data and background processes
when the website offers more features with less overhead?

------
jamieomatthews
I agree completely, the crashes are the #1 problem. In fact its almost
unbelievable that such a buggy app could be passed through the app store
process (I'm sure Facebook gets very special treatment with app store reviews,
though).

One big issue I've noticed is that the app is borderline unusable on older
devices (iphone 4). This may explain the huge number of people who are
reporting these issues, which certainly happen less on newer devices. I've
noticed what looks like a small UI hickup on my 5s will crash the iphone 4.

~~~
smackfu
Yeah, that could be it, since I don't think I've ever had a Facebook crash on
my iPhone 6.

------
bnolsen
Interesting facebook doesnt have 2 separate apps. A "stable" version and a
"beta" version that people can use. When a beta version runs well enough make
that one the stable version. People running a "beta" that has some bugs will
be far more forgiving than people running "stable" versions with bugs.

~~~
evanb
I use facebook's Paper app, which is essentially this. I have found it to be
totally stable, a much more pleasing interface, and (for those who care, I
personally don't) you don't need the Messenger app either. I don't use the
content aggregation either--it's just a significantly nicer facebook
interface.

It's rate 4+ on the app store, with 512 reviews. I think it's just less well-
known.

Edit: link [https://www.facebook.com/paper](https://www.facebook.com/paper)

~~~
Polyphonie
I believe Paper is only available on the US App Store as well as being iOS
only. So it isn't surprising it's not well known.

~~~
evanb
I didn't realize it was US only. I wonder why.

------
dilap
Not providing update notes is the real mind-boggler for me. It is just a giant
FU to the users.

(Messenger does provide release notes; it's just the FB app proper that
doesn't.)

~~~
smackfu
It's because app updates include features, but the roll-out of those features
is staged internally at Facebook. So there are no features in any given update
that can be announced.

~~~
dilap
Hmm, I find that explanation pretty uncompelling as a user.

They could either hold the app release until the features go live, or list the
coming features, but note that rollout would not be immediate (lots of
precedent there w/ e.g. graph search).

------
smackfu
To be frank, if someone is rating the entire Facebook app as 1-star because
they are forced to use the Messenger app, that's a bullshit review that I put
no stock in.

------
martin_tipgain
Btw. I wanted to boost my blog post on facebook. Facebook didn't approve it.
Reason: "Your ad wasn't approved because it includes an improper reference to
Facebook". Wasn't facebook all about free speech?
[https://twitter.com/mposchenrieder/status/557225783286980608](https://twitter.com/mposchenrieder/status/557225783286980608)

