When an app nags me for a review, it really gets in the way and hinders my usage of it. A bad review is a totally legitimate response to that.

If this is your only solution to biased reviews, then you have no solution, you just have a way to move the problem around some. If you don't want silly one-star reviews complaining about the prompt, don't interrupt people when they're trying to get something done.

No one said nag. People seem to be be assuming the worst possible behaviour. Asking once with a "Don't ask again" and "Later" option is pretty standard.

The original post said a popup is annoying enough to deserve a 1-star review. I strongly disagree and if you enjoy free apps, it's one of the few ways to really thank the developer.

> No one said nag. People seem to be be assuming the worst possible behaviour. Asking once with a "Don't ask again" and "Later" option is pretty standard.

It is pretty standard, and it turns out that I have more than a hundred apps installed that all do it.

I too routinely give one-star ratings to try and de-incentivise this kind of thing. I'm sorry that you don't seem to have an alternate way of going about getting balanced reviews but I don't have an alternate way of never seeing that popup again.

Edit: Thinking about it further, it's remarkably arrogant to dismiss our complaints as effectively the wrong kind of complaint to put in reviews. That's not something you get to decide.

No one dismissed your complaint. I presented the developer point of view.

If you honestly think that a single popup makes an app deserve of a 1 star rating regardless of anything else, I disagree. It's like being a single issue voter. It's also more damaging than you know to the app developers who's work you are using (in most cases for free) and I'd encourage you to reconsider. Apple could fix this issue. A few vigilantes can't

> I'd encourage you to reconsider. Apple could fix this issue. A few vigilantes can't

Apple aren't going to fix the issue without it being a problem for them. I'm making it a problem by poisoning the review well in my own little way. I think this is a considered response - it's literally the only push-back that users have against the practice.

My preferred outcome would be a complete ban on asking for reviews.

Edit: my initial post was a bit abrasive, edited. But I'd like to end with a question:

What's your preferred user response to the practice of seemingly every single app begging for reviews? An actual, actionable response.

Two-star reviews? Three?

>What's your preferred user response to the practice of seemingly every single app begging for reviews? An actual, actionable response.

Complain to Apple for having a broken system, but don't hurt the developers of the very apps you're F-ing using.

As OP said above, Apple could fix this issue. Maybe weight recent reviews more, but don't just wipe the history for every upgrade.

The profound sense of entitlement that users express is really frustrating to app developers.

We can either never ask for reviews and watch as 1 in 100 people EVER review our app (and THOSE reviews are skewed to the people who have a complaint, so the review average is typically crap), meaning that we barely get any downloads and can't actually make a living selling apps, or we can ask for reviews and have people complain with 1-star reviews because the app they continue using for free annoyed them once.

And entirely because of Apple it needs to annoy them more than once in order to stay relevant.

Here's what I'd love to do: Make it so that, if you rate an app 1-star, or even 2-stars, you can't use it any more. If you rate it that low and you still use it, you're lying to other users and harming the creator of the app that you're using for free. Give me a developer API to know what users rated the app how, and I'd implement that in a minute.

People could still rate it 1-star if it sucked. Because if it sucked they wouldn't want to use it.

Drop the review to 4 stars if you're annoyed by it, but know that the developers really, really have no choice. You're basically telling them to commit economic suicide for your minor convenience.

> that you're using for free

Rude assumption.

I always, as a matter of principle, buy the "remove ads" IAP if I use an app regularly. Even if I didn't it wasn't my choice to charge nothing for the app. That's on the developer. Apple doesn't owe you a living, I don't owe you a living. The state of the app store has been known for years now and you've had a long time to decline to participate.

Your problems with Apple are not my problems as a user.

They are user problems in a way, but indirectly. Without user reviews new apps are buried even when searched with exact names. So the exact app you need for a niche task will never be found in the first place.

The only real solution is for Apple/Google to not wipe the slate every app update. You have to see the user benefit to that - apple right now literally has a direct disincentive to updating an app.

Google doesn't wipe the slate, to my knowledge. Has that changed?

>Your problems with Apple are not my problems as a user.

My problems with Apple are exactly your problems as a user.

If you want the apps that don't ever ask for reviews, then search past the first 100 that show up. Almost no one does. You'll find them there, because they don't rank at the top of the results.

Guess how much money those apps make? Not enough to pay for development. It's a power law distribution. At the top of the search you can make a decent living. By the time you're down to 20th place, you might be making $20/month.

You want good apps to use? Even apps you pay for? Then work within the system that exists, and work to change the system. Don't screw the developers who provide you the apps your using.

All you're doing by using the apps that you're slamming is being a hypocrite. The very reason you found those apps is that they asked users to post reviews. And the only reason that an app developer can continue to make and support the apps you're using is that they stay near the top of the rankings. Meaning that they really have no choice, most of the time, but to ask for reviews.

You want to have apps that work, and that aren't exclusively created by huge companies that can afford to get them to the top of the charts with big ad buys? Then support the developers who create them.

You don't want those apps? Then why do you have them installed on your phone at all? Easy solution here. Uninstall the annoying apps.

No, you owe us nothing. But neither do we owe you anything. If you're using our apps, and you want us to be able to afford to continue to make such apps, your one time $1-2 payment to remove ads isn't enough to pay for development for more than a couple of minutes. It's appreciated, don't get me wrong. A typical user of an ad-supported app probably makes $0.25 in a lifetime (depending on many variables). So the only way to actually make app development work is to get hundreds of thousands of downloads.

I actually have stopped trying to participate as an indie app developer who depends on the arbitrary and awful rankings that are ubiquitous in all the various markets. But I have empathy for those who keep trying, and I do want apps to continue to exist.

If one annoys me, I'll uninstall it. That's the honest thing to do, and by the way, it also hurts the ranking of the app. Rating it one star for a single annoyance is effectively lying out of spite. A "one star" ranking should be reserved for an app that you intend to immediately uninstall. Period.

>> Guess how much money those apps make? Not enough to pay for development. It's a power law distribution. At the top of the search you can make a decent living.

It's unlikely and rare for an app developed exclusively for native iOS, with no existing user base built on desktop or physical business presence in the real world, to ever have a chance of succeeding. The fault for misguided expectations lies entirely with the developers, not Apple or its users. The real purpose of the App Store - that is, what a majority of users find valuable - is having mobile apps for brand names and services they are already acquainted with.

Your primary install base should be from users explicitly searching for your app by name because they already interact with you elsewhere. If you're depending on people to "discover" your app without having ever heard of you, then you are choosing to gamble and attempting to game a system that every other gambler is trying to game right alongside you.

The only real problem here is developers trying to use mobile apps as either a) a get-rich-quick scheme, or b) feeling entitled to earn full-time income solely from their dream job of working as their own boss from home. The App Store is a cesspool of every developer who figured out how to install XCode acting like they automatically deserve to win the windfall lottery. If you choose to develop apps that have no business plan behind them other than "hope I get popular through a closed-garden algorithm", the resulting fallout has nothing to do with Apple or device owners.

> If you're depending on people to "discover" your app without having ever heard of you, then you are choosing to gamble and attempting to game a system that every other gambler is trying to game right alongside you.

Bingo! All the popular indie apps that don't use every possible strategy to get to the top of the heap will fail.

By choosing the top rated apps in the top 20, you are playing the same game. If you don't like indie apps, don't download them. "The only way to win is not to play." You don't like that game, play a different game. Don't hurt the many, many developers who are in fact making a living making apps.

And don't spite them just because they're living the dream of earning a full time income working as their own boss from home and it's what you'd like to be doing.

>The App Store is a cesspool of every developer who figured out how to install XCode acting like they automatically deserve to win the windfall lottery.

I don't disagree, but it also has some very nice apps. If you think an app really sucks, by all means slam it in the reviews. It's a service to other people who may download it.

But I'm complaining about people rating apps they otherwise consider to be 4- or 5-star apps, and that they then vote down to 1-star because they're pissed about being asked to review. That's lying out of spite, is hurting a developer who otherwise did a good job on their app, and is uncool.

I'm sympathetic to your argument, but the more you harp on about "free" the less sympathetic I get. Most apps aren't free: they ask me to pay with money or data, which I do, or attention, which I prefer not to. Ad supported apps are not literally free — there's an exchange of value from the user to the developer in all cases.

I suspect what lies at the heart of this whole issue is that some developers think that attention is not a cost to the user.

We assume the worst behavior because that's what we observe.

If you only ever ask once, don't you lose out the next time you release a new version and all the reviews get reset? The standard seems to be to ask for every new version, which is a major pain in the behind.

Speaking only for myself, I don't one-star any app just for asking once. I only do it to repeat offenders. I'd prefer never to be asked, but if it's just once, it's easier to just dismiss it and get on with things.

I've never ever seen a "Don't ask again" option in the ios apps i use. And therefor i also leave 1 star ratings once in a while for apps that keep annoying me with this question (and interrupting my workflow.)

i think it's the only effective thing i can do, the message is: stop wasting my time

> A one-star review is a grossly disproportionate and unfair response.

If it was an isolated incident sure. If someone cold calls me then I'm going to say "sorry, I'm not interested", but if you're getting 10 calls a day then the response changes. It's a constant problem and I'm willing to lash out at anyone I see making it worse.

As much as we blame it on the app store, we see similar behavior with subscriptions on a heap of websites.

> I mean I hate being nagged as much as the next guy but let's face it: the only reason these apps are begging for reviews is because Apple store discoverability sucks.

Or just not create apps if apple aren't creating a viable platform. It's not something that should be left up to the app developer or the users.

In fact, I'd rather app stores themselves were responsible for review prompts, it would provide better sampling.

>> Apple store discoverability sucks.

I will never understand this complaint. If you are depending on people to "discover" your app, you have no business plan and should never have developed the app in the first place. The majority of useful apps are not "discovered" - they are searched for by name by users who already interact with the company via their web service, desktop app, and/or real-world business.

I don't understand why developers, trying to jump on the get-rich-quick or "be my own boss working from home" bandwagon, are so surprised that there's no such thing as an algorithm that is going to give their one app any visibility over the other 90% of similarly unwanted apps vying for the same treatment.

Build a business outside of iOS that makes money providing value to its users. Then add an iOS app as a convenience and incentive for mobile users to continue doing business with you. The percentage of apps released solely to try and "make it big" which will ever do so is laughably small. Ignoring that fact and then complaining that the system is unfair shows a complete lack of common sense. Being capable of simply developing an app does not entitle one to earn a living doing so.

It's a minor inconvenience, and my retaliation is in proportion to that.

That you feel the need to "retaliate" over what you deem a minor inconvenience says it all.

What does it say, that I'm occasionally petty when people waste my time? I certainly can't argue with that.

Maybe. On the other hand, it's an honest reflection of how I feel at the moment. Maybe I could put in some effort to figure out a broader view, but on the other hand, why put in effort to help people who don't value my time?

That is not relevant, it's about respect. A develop should respect "not interrupting a users workflow".

From the Dev prospective it's just a minor inconvenience/1 app, from the users perspective it may be 100 apps and the problem becomes a real pain in the ass. And there is no way to opt out.

Then the 1 star review makes sense, doesn't it?

I've found that many "prompted" reviews are generally of low quality and lack detail, and essentially flood the listing with useless information. (Who cares if there are 500 reviews each saying "Good app!", that tells you basically nothing.)

In 7 years I've never prompted for a review in any of my apps. Users that write reviews do so genuinely, and if they are happy, they often leave extremely detailed feedback explaining why, and that is much more valuable to me.

It's not the review that's important, it's the * rating that shows in search results etc.

> Please don't give an app a 1 star review just because they ask for a review.

Perhaps don't pop up things begging for reviews?

There doesn't seem to be any way of turning it off ("Disable app review requests") for people, thus these kind of user responses. :/

As mentioned further up, it's brutally difficult without anything like this. The App Store shows ratings for only the current version by default so after you slave over each upgrade, you lose all the great reviews you've carefully collected. Those ratings are critical to your success in an already difficult marketplace.

Almost no one goes out of their way to review your app, so the majority of reviews you'll get are disgruntled people, often with unfair or unrelated issues.

Preverse actions aren't a good response to preserve incentives, though it is often required. The same argument is used to auto playing to take over ads. You can't blame content makers who can't continue unless they add more aggressive ads any more than you can blame the users from installing ad blockers.

I understand that that is a bad position for developers to be in, but is that the user's problem? Also assuming users showing this behaviour are evenly distributed across apps, didn't this end up not mattering?

It becomes the users' problem when app development becomes unsustainable due to serious difficulties like this. If you're a good developer playing a clean game, you will lose out to more aggressive developers.

Personally I don't think it ends up not mattering because you get better results with the dark pattern people have outlined - ask how they feel about the app, then route positive people to review, or negative people to a feedback form.

Just sucks when someone rates your entire app 1* because of a single, small decision made, despite you having made great decisions at every other point.

It is a problem because in the end developers will just move to the next big platform. Right now Apple and Google essentially charge 30% just for card processing and distribution. Discoverability is no longer a benifit of the App Store.

The problem is that anything other than small, one trick apps are unsustainable. Look at Sketch for example - a perfect app for the iPad form factor but it doesn't exist because the App Store economy sucks.

The thing is it isn't just discoverability, but there are way more problems to deal with. Especially in terms of customer service. As a dev you get no info from a purchase of your app unless you mainuallu collect it inside your app. Have an upset customer and want to refund them? You can't. Want to discount an existing user for a new paid version? It is a super awkward process with app bundles. Want to give out a coupon code for a new product to existing users of another? Nope, can't do that.

App stores are relatively recent things and devs made butt loads of $$$ before the first App Store opened. You are being uncreative depending on nags to get publicity. If you have to annoy users to make a go of it, you just might be in the wrong business. It's not my fault. Not Apple's fault either. Blaming others for failure is Psych 101. Yeah, we get why you do it. Humans are extremely reticent to blame themselves for anything. Furthermore, we owe you for "using" your app and getting pelted with your ads. Except that right there is beyond simple selfishness, and crosses the threads hold into soft psychopathy.

You aren't selfless enough to make it in software. You can't think about the customer, only yourself. That's not how business usually works.

So, life is hard. Awwwwwwwwww. There's your sympathy. Now, succeed without bugging your customer or admit defeat and get out.

Or keep complaining that you're getting 1 star reviews.

Up to you.

This is an app that won an Apple Design Award, was one of Time's apps of the year and has done just fine otherwise.

I am speaking of people who rate an otherwise 4-5* app with 1* because of one prompt screen (that also prompts for feedback) per major version.

It sounds like you think the rating system is there for developers, it isn't. Those one star reviews because you're nagging your clients is good for me as a user because it's an indication I don't want to use your app.

If an app doesn't provide a "Don't ask me again" button, or even worse, continue to ask for reviews even after I've tapped "Don't ask me again", you can bet I'll leave a 1-star review. If you don't want 1-star reviews, don't beg for reviews. Ask once and leave it be.

>Secondly, the 3rd items you list is actually a dark pattern. If you are going to ask users to review, let them be honest. Directing 5 stars to app store and 4 or fewer to an internal system is gaming the system.

Sorry, but that particular pattern is 100% appropriate, IMO.

* If someone has a problem with my app, I absolutely don't want to send them to the reviews where they'll post a "tech support review". Yes Apple finally got off their collective behinds and caught up to Google's Play Store in that developers can respond now to reviews, but it's still a terrible venue for helping people with an app. Send them to somewhere that they can get real help, and turn their mediocre to poor review into a positive review.

* If someone has a problem with an app, the odds are roughly 7x greater that they will post a bad review. People who are frustrated are just more likely to seek out the review process to vent their spleens. There's absolutely no reason for me to attempt to be "fair" by reminding everyone to review my app; the haters will find the review button entirely on their own without my assistance.

I might send 4-5 stars to the app store, but if they rate it 3 or less, then damn straight I'm going to ask them what's wrong and not have them rate it. That's just common sense, not gaming the system.

> That's just common sense, not gaming the system.

I bet about 95% of people would disagree with you. This is a very dark pattern, few people are engaging in it, and if you told me non-anonymously that your app does it I would put you and your app on my blacklist of "not to be trusted, ever".

And I'd be happy to not have customers who are so extreme with their viewpoints, to be honest. If you have that kind of extreme negative reaction and would rate an app one star for asking you for help in promoting an app that they otherwise like, then I'm sure you'd be likely to express other entitled attitudes about how the app should and shouldn't work. People like that tend to be a support nightmare.

I'm not really anonymous here anyway. Check my profile. It points at my company web page. Feel free to never download any of my games. Please.

FWIW none of my games follow this pattern. But apps live and die based on ratings. I've had people rate my app one star simply because it was a paid version, and the Google return policy at the time was 15 minutes. So the review? "I can't judge whether this app is good in 15 minutes, so I'm rating it one star in protest." [1]

My fledgling, otherwise 5-star app that never even had a single review ask, with its measly ~5 reviews or so, now was pulled down to 4 stars because of one jerk. Who likely downloaded the app to pirate it. Yes, he almost certainly pirated the paid version; it showed up shortly thereafter on pirate sites. And his complaint was specious since I had a free demo you could also download.

We're not talking about voting for a politician here. We're talking about encouraging the people who like an app to vote for it; as I mentioned, the people who hate it already are motivated to slam it. So you're telling me that it's a dark pattern to encourage people who like your app to rate it, and to help the people who are having trouble with your app? Then you have zero empathy or understanding of the life of an indie app developer.

[1] EDIT: Actually, my current app under development is explicitly designed to not care about ranking in the various stores. And it will be Cordova (or similar) based, so I won't need to "reset" the reviews when I push patches to the app. But I don't promise that I won't occasionally ask for a review, so please feel free to blacklist my company and not download it anyway.

Thing is, by doing this you are not encouraging users to give your app a fair review and write what they truly think of it. Instead, you want to filter those to only positives, and that is indeed gaming the system, you quite frankly want to have a cake and eat it too.

I don't get this. If an app asks "Do you like this app?" and you get a negative response why is connecting them with real human customer service to figure out their problem a bad thing? Apple is the third party in this interaction. The app itself is an extension of your own business, so why should Apple be the arbiter of everything? I get it if you are pretending to be Apple and have a similar star rating/review form...but in most all cases I've seen there is a clear distinction of what you are doing.

If I order a steak at a restaurant and it is overdone, I tell the waiter, I don't eat it and go immediately post a 1 star yelp review. I mention that in the review later on, but their response to my displeasure is part of the review itself.

And if you don't complain about anything and say you are happy, the restaurant doesn't immediately try to get a benefit from that by handing you a tablet and saying "please leave a yelp review now". And if they did, you probably would complain.

I've had restaurants ask me exactly that, after asking whether I was happy, and no, I wasn't pissed. I like the restaurants in question. Heck, I've had my dentist send me an email asking me to rate them.

When you live in a world where reviews can make or break your business, of course you're going to do whatever is possible to encourage good reviews. There's too much riding on it, and too many jerks out there that will rate you 3 stars or less because you weren't exactly right for their needs (or tastes in the case of a restaurant). Because people are going to just not go to a restaurant that rates a 3 star average, and they mostly won't download an app with a 3 star average.

A little bit of reality here: You can't always make everyone happy. You just can't. And because people who are unhappy are something like 7x more likely to leave a bad review than people who are happy, you pretty much have to encourage people who are happy to leave reviews. In other words you have to game the system just to have an accurate review profile.

EVERYONE games the system, even if you don't realize that. Asking for a "fake rating" and then sending them to make the real rating is the obvious way to game the system, and it clearly troubles some people. A far more subtle approach is to just wait for someone to use your app several times over a week and then ask them to rate it. Anyone who's using it that much probably likes it. Halfway in between could be the app that asks you if you're having any problems before asking you to rate it.

But really it's just a matter of degree, and it's life in the app ecosystem, and even in restaurants and other domains today. Railing against it is like railing against the tide.

It's not gaming the system.

If the user is unhappy, leaving a review won't make them happy. Providing support via some other mechanism to try and fix their issue, that's what makes them happy.

If the user is already happy, they don't need support. But maybe they'd like to leave a review to tell other people that they're happy.

The ratings are not for you, or the customer leaving it. They are for other customers. The problem is, you think something is for you, that is not for you, and you are asking for everyone to behave like it is for you, and you are telling them that, if they don't treat it like it is for you, that you don't want them as a customer.

Fair enough, if that's the way you feel, but if that's really what you want ... put it on the app page, not some off-store forum. I question your sincerity.

Reviews are for the customers, yes. But if a customer has a problem, leaving a bad review does not help that customer. And if it's a problem that can be easily fixed, it doesn't help other customers either. Directing people with problems to internal support is unambiguously a good thing. If that customer's issue can be resolved, that's the best solution all around. And if it can't be resolved, well, the user can still go leave a bad review if they want to.

The people responding to you don't understand that without asking for reviews, your app will just die.

Apple needs to stop nuking reviews/stars on every release (give us the option!), then we'd stop asking for reviews.

We understand, we just don't care.

You think you don't care, but look at your App Store purchase history from two or more years ago and see what is still around.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Are you saying that I really do care, because it helps apps I like to use to survive?

There is two tabs in the app store, one for "Current Version" the other for "All Versions" so it is not true that Apple erase previous ratings.

The survival of your app is not my concern.

If apple want a vibrant ecosystem of apps then they can make the changes, but as a user it's not my responsibility.

Apps that beg for reviews deserve to die.

Review nags will not save an otherwise anonymous app. Your blame is misplaced. By not listening to your customers, yes, your app will suffer, as will many businesses that are indifferent to the wants of their customers.