Just a small positive note amongst the gloom of NDAs, app rejections and approval delays: Apple have today changed how the customer reviews system works for App Store applications: you now must have downloaded or purchased the app before you’re allowed to post a review on it. Here’s what it looks like if you try to review an app you’ve not actually used.
Since the App Store is the only way to get the apps in the first place, I think this is a strong positive step, and should help make the app reviews much more useful and representative to customers (and less depressing/frustrating for developers).
The wheels may be turning slowly, but they are turning – and I do believe that Apple is listening to our complaints.
(Thanks to my friend Neil for noticing the change this morning. His own app, Escape Pod, has received some frivolous reviews on the US store.)
Well, to be honest I wouldn’t call this “a strong positive step”.
Why? ’cause it should have been handled that way in first place, shouldn’t it?
This is definitely a good thing. It didn’t really make sense for someone to be able to review an app if they never downloaded it.
Vince, you can choose to be happy when good things happen, or annoyed they weren’t that way from the start. I choose the former position. Just give it some time; things will get better.
I’m in the group who is pleased this has happened and hopefully it will be the start of Apple reviewing several of their existing practices and policies and fixing those which are obviously broken.
A welcome improvement indeed. I’d have quite like it if they’d deleted all reviews from people who reviewed and don’t own the app or at least annotate them in some way but *shrug*
Other improvements I’d like to see
* Date of review
* Version of product the reviewer was reviewing
* Price paid (given how many apps are going through free promotions and price cuts)
* A way for developers to respond directly to reviews or at least view the reviewers email address. I keep getting bug reports (often just user error tbh) left in reviews and unable to contact the person to find out why they’re having an issue.
Fair enough, there are some reviews by people who’ve not downloaded the apps and are totally pointless. On the other hand, Apple needs to review which apps are available in which store – in the UK store there are so many traffic camera apps for US cities or location based apps that are only suitable for the US. As not all of these are free, it helps to see a review that says “not suitable for the UK”. Failing that, the information about a location based app should make it clear which areas it covers.
Automatically dating apps would be useful as some have been given very negative reviews which refer to the original version. It’s often impossible to tell which version a review refers to so I usually include a date or version umber of the app in my reviews
The review system of the app store is presumably the same as the (music) iTunes store. It is not unreasonable to allow them to post comments in iTunes for music they purchased elsewhere. Obviously the conditions of posting reviews needed to be tightened for the app store and this is what happened. Maybe Apple should have thought about it earlier. Maybe they did and had other priorities. Maybe they did not and realised that changes should be made. I think it is probably the latter and Apple is actually listening. I don’t expect any NDA changes (I am sure they have strong business reasons to keep the NDA) but I am optimistic about changes in the approval system.
This is definitely great – reviews on the internet that aren’t verified in some way are at best difficult to trust. It’s good to see Apple are taking a leaf out of Reevoo’s book (www.reevoo.com)
It would make sense to include the version of the app reviewed given the recent fiasco with the lightsabre app. It’s been completely turned into adware, but there is a long list of glowing reviews of the former phonesabre product. It will be a long time before those great reviews slide off the bottom in the relevance sorting even though they are essentially reviews of a different product. Obviously this could be “gamed” also by unscrupulous developers.
Wahoo! I filed a bug report against the AppStore with exactly this suggestion a few weeks ago. Glad to see they’re listening to reason.
[...] Matt Legend writes that now Apple has changed the way customers review apps — requiring that they have downloaded or purchased an application before being allowed to write a review. He calls this “a strong positive step” towards resolving some of the issues app developers have asked for from Apple. Still to come he says are the gloom of NDAs, app rejections and approval delays. [...]
I don’t completely agree with this idea.
Do I have to buy a $1000 ‘I am Rich’ app to leave a note that I think it’s way over priced? It’s similar with any other app too. If 50% of people who left a note said that an app is over priced, it probably is.
This was just similar to what happens in real world, where we do tell our friends if we feel that something is over priced!
I however can understand the ’star ratings’ part. Maybe the solution is to allow anybody to leave a note/review (yes, review could include only the pricing part and nothing else), but only those who have purchased to leave a ’star rating’.
Thanks for providing a place to leave my comment.
Arthur – I think the basic judgment of these reviews is on the functionality of the app. If you’ve used it and think it’s too expensive (e.g., “for what it does”), that’s one thing. But if you haven’t and just think it’s too expensive, that’s not really valuable feedback for potential buyers who want to know if actual users like the app (or find that the functionality warrants the price paid). My $.02…
[...] App Store Reviews Now Require Download or Purchase [...]
The App store review process definitely makes more sense now and shouldn’t be compared to the iTunes store. With iPhone apps one can *only* get them from the store where as with iTunes media one could’ve already seen or heard it from other sources…
@ Ryan,
Agreed.
Arthur, you 1) don’t have to buy anything, obviously, and 2) your example of I Am Rich doesn’t represent what the App Store is largely made up of – 90% of apps are free while the rest are generally $10 or less. That’s why Apple removed I Am Rich. If you haven’t played the game or used the application you are reviewing, that seems pretty dishonest.
With this new much-needed rule comes a bug, however, which I freaked out about at first. I suggest people file a bug report through iTunes for this: after testing to see if this rule was in place by clicking on “Write a Review” for an app I didn’t own and getting the message that I couldn’t without purchasing or downloading it, I immediately went to the Music section of the iTunes Store and when I tried to review an album there, the same message popped up! I tried it on movies and TV shows, which had the same result!! I then logged out and back into iTunes and tried reviewing music and movies and TV shows again. To my relief, I could do so as usual. I went back to the App Store and picked another app and received the pop-up that I couldn’t. I then tried reviewing albums and TV shows and, you guessed it, that pop-up reappeared, thus I signed out and back in again.
Have to say, after reading just a few of Gemmell’s posts, I’m quite impressed and glad to find a real developer with a level head on his shoulders. His August 4th, “iPhone Developer Complaints,” is a must read. I’m a RoughlyDrafted reader, so I think I’ll forward that one along to Dilger, who really could have used it in his dealings with Gruber (who I’m somewhat disenchanted with, though he did…link to this very article, haha).
[...] About time… [...]
[...] change the review process. Starting today (well, I noticed it for the first time today, and so did Matt Gemmell), you have to actually own the application in order to review it. Go ahead and try to enter a [...]
[...] change the review process. Starting today (well, I noticed it for the first time today, and so did Matt Gemmell), you have to actually own the application in order to review it. Go ahead and try to enter a [...]
[...] change the review process. Starting today (well, I noticed it for the first time today, and so did Matt Gemmell), you have to actually own the application in order to review it. Go ahead and try to enter a [...]
Good stuff! It was about the time!
Hope they remove that pesky NDA soon too. It’s just wrong on so many levels – it should be unconstitutional.
Developers/Beta Testers – register at http://iBetaTest.com
Petar
Arthur — IMO, anyone who would be dissuaded from buying ‘I Am Rich’ solely by reviews saying that it’s too expensive (when that should have been obvious from the description, which was brutally honest about what it did) would probably have burned his money, or lost it, or bought magic beans or something within days anyway.
A “too expensive for what it does” review is ONLY useful from someone who has not only bought it, but describes how he/she used it & what was expected for that price.
And I strongly agree that each review should include, at the very least, the version number being reviewed. A “wow, this crashes all the time” review of version 1.0 can be more or less dismissed if the app is up to version 1.07, for instance. Also, knowing that 1.07 crashes all the time (especially under iPhone OS 2.1) would tell us something very important to know about the developer. :)
Yes, Arthur, if you have an opinion about its price than vote with your wallet. But it does me no good at all to hear that YOU think its overpriced. I can judge that for myself, thankyouverymuch.
It indicates that Apple is starting to have time to address issues with the app store, and like Matt, I see it as a positive development, and likely an indicator of more good things to come.
To those griping how it “should have been that way in the first place” – well, it wasn’t, for whatever reasons (I tend to think that keeping the app store running was of a higher priority than smoothing rough edges, in the beginning). As Matt pointed out in a much earlier blog post of his “Just be f***ing patient.”
[...] Matt Legend Gemmell – Apple is listening This was so, so obvious. I'm hoping that this is a first step. (tags: apple application_store reviews) [...]
Yeah, I see the point now. Most of you guys are right.
Thank you! :)
I look forward to see great apps in the App Store. Start cranking your dev machines in full swing again! :)
(NB: I have paid for some apps in the store, and I believe each one of them is worth every cent I paid for!)
What some folks seem to be missing is that the “it should be free” reviews seriously drag down the average review for a product. When people are scanning the list of apps in a category, they tend to look for the 4-star and 5-star apps. A few of these freetards can seriously damage a new product in this marketplace, forever dooming it to obscurity.
Apple should have seen this coming (I could have told them before the app store opened). Apple should have fixed this sooner. But Apple did, finally, fix it. Now they need to take the next step, and blow all the reviews that were posted without downloading the app right out the airlock.
/gary
. .. …
http://illumineX.com
It’s about time. I am sick of people leaving useless, unqualified reviews.
[...] [via Matt Legend Gemmell] [...]
[...] put an end to this practice, Apple now expressly enforces that you must buy an application to earn the right of being able to review it. This is, of course, great for the application developers because this eliminates the possibility [...]
Leaving a review of an application you haven’t bought is merely leaving a review of the people buying the application (I-am-rich being a prime example). All of those reviews had nothing to do with the application itself and were thus completely off-topic. If someone wants to take a stand on that application worthiness in general then they should find or make another forum for it instead thinking for one second that I want to read their drivel in the store. Good step Apple and long overdue. I hope they take the next step and remove all reviews from people who haven’t purchased the application. All of the necessary data should be on their servers…
Sweet! And just in time for my upcoming app. :-)
Now I just hope Apple does something similar for iTunes video reviews — which are overflowing with people whining that videos for rental aren’t available for purchase and vice versa.
[...] change the review process. Starting today (well, I noticed it for the first time today, and so did Matt Gemmell), you have to actually own the application in order to review it. Go ahead and try to enter a [...]
[...] in other Apple-related news, the App Store changed its review policy so that only owners of each app could give it a review. Makes sense! [Apple Insider, Matt [...]
[...] in other Apple-related news, the App Store changed its review policy so that only owners of each app could give it a review. Makes sense! [Apple Insider, Matt [...]
[...] Apple-related news, the App Store changed its review polic… so that only owners of each app [...]
[...] in other Apple-related news, the App Store changed its review policy so that only owners of each app could give it a review. Makes sense! [Apple Insider, Matt [...]
[...] Apple made some changes to the AppStore recently. Many blogs miss the actual meat, but focus on blocking fake reviews part of the update. The meat is, Apple changed the way the applications are listed in [...]
You are missing the key part of the changes made to the AppStore. This is just a small part of the update. Apple made some changes to the way they handle/sort the apps as developers are gaming the system. I included more details here.
http://touchmeme.wordpress.com/2008/09/28/apple-changes-app-listing-behavior-in-appstore/
[...] change the review process. Starting today (well, I noticed it for the first time today, and so did Matt Gemmell), you have to actually own the application in order to review it. Go ahead and try to enter a [...]
[...] Vía: Mattgemmel. [...]
[...] in other Apple-related news, the App Store changed its review policy so that only owners of each app could give it a review. Makes sense! [Apple Insider, Matt [...]
[...] in other Apple-related news, the App Store changed its review policy so that only owners of each app could give it a review. Makes sense! [Apple Insider, Matt [...]
Yes! It’s about time!!
[...] change the review process. Starting today (well, I noticed it for the first time today, and so did Matt Gemmell), you have to actually own the application in order to review it. Go ahead and try to enter a [...]
[...] Apple is listening | Vía: Daring Fireball ← Anterior | Inicio Comparte esta anotación [...]
A very positive step indeed to keep hoi poloi away
[...] in other Apple-related news, the App Store changed its review policy so that only owners of each app could give it a review. Makes sense! [Apple Insider, Matt Legend] [...]
Agree with Matt 100%. My first game app rating suffered from just this sort of abuse. “Reviewed” by people who outright accused me in their posting of writing all the positive reviews myself and gave me 0 or 1 star. This clearly showed their own stupidity as: a) as a Canadian I can’t post any reviews in the US store; b) as a developer, I’m under contract with Apple to not do that; and c) heading into my late 40s I’m old enough to know that’d be wrong ayway. I had my leawyer actually draft a letter to Apple saying that the reviewers accusation were both legally libelous and slanderous. My second app (a better one) got hit by the same folks and damaged sales. At least this has now been cleared up in time for my newest app (third one, and the best to date). Now to have Apple scrub the reviews please that were previously posted by non-owners would also be great.
[...] supone un pequeño triunfo para los poco-tenidos-en-cuenta desarrolladores, para los que ya es suficiente el hecho de que [...]