Please do not post the same thing multiple times. The board software automatically flags certain posts as needing moderator attention. This happens the most often for new users. I'm pretty sure this is made clear at the time you attempt to post. Posting the same thing over and over again just makes that many more posts the moderators have to weed through later. This makes us sad. Don't make us sad. If your post/thread doesn't appear, just wait a while. Don't post it again. If it hasn't shown up by the next day, then you can try again. I normally go through posts in the mornings, and try to check a few times throughout the day, but I'm not here 24/7. There will typically be a significant delay before posts are approved. Just be patient.
Ok I'm using it right now and A LOT has changed with the new app store app. Some good things, some not so good. I really can't say much more without violating the NDA but I'm sure screenshots will be widely available soon.
Interesting about the top lists. Has anyone tried the search function? Is it using the Chomp engine or the existing one? If someone find a link to an article or screenshot, please post. We will not have time to try out the beta for a couple of weeks.
Interesting about the top lists. Has anyone tried the search function? Is it using the Chomp engine or the existing one? If someone find a link to an article or screenshot, please post. We will not have time to try out the beta for a couple of weeks.
Search is the same as far as I can tell. However, that could change between now and the Fall.
I really like the design and interface for individual apps. It will greatly help downloads especially for those with well designed apps.
I really dislike the featured apps section, it's the complete opposite of intuitive. Granted I've only had it for a few minutes, so my opinion my change very quickly. The top lists look as though it is more focused on the top 25 rather than getting exposure to as many apps in the top charts as possible.
Overall, I think the positives outweigh the negatives, and the design is truly spectacular - very pretty.
I really like the design and interface for individual apps. It will greatly help downloads especially for those with well designed apps.
I really dislike the featured apps section, it's the complete opposite of intuitive. Granted I've only had it for a few minutes, so my opinion my change very quickly. The top lists look as though it is more focused on the top 25 rather than getting exposure to as many apps in the top charts as possible.
Overall, I think the positives outweigh the negatives, and the design is truly spectacular - very pretty.
A couple concerning things I noticed regarding ratings / reviews:
1. The ratings breakdown (similar to what you see in iTunes and on the iPad app) is for ALL versions. There is no option to view the ratings breakdown for the current version. 2. Only 5 reviews are shown, which are, as far as I can tell, the "most helpful" reviews across ALL versions of the app. All 5 of my reviews are from 2008 and 2009. There is no option to view more reviews or switch to "most recent".
A couple concerning things I noticed regarding ratings / reviews:
1. The ratings breakdown (similar to what you see in iTunes and on the iPad app) is for ALL versions. There is no option to view the ratings breakdown for the current version. 2. Only 5 reviews are shown, which are, as far as I can tell, the "most helpful" reviews across ALL versions of the app. All 5 of my reviews are from 2008 and 2009. There is no option to view more reviews or switch to "most recent".
1 Glad it shows all so u can't just erase bad but at the same time u don't get switched over to only 5 ratings when you really had more before the update.
2 Should b interesting but scares me comp could just vote up neg reviews like that.
Side note facebook is going to b full of app ads good for word of mouth bad for people that use it to campaign.
Off topic How does Xcode play with os6. I would love to beta test but I don't want any hasle with testing and deving my current apps
A couple concerning things I noticed regarding ratings / reviews:
1. The ratings breakdown (similar to what you see in iTunes and on the iPad app) is for ALL versions. There is no option to view the ratings breakdown for the current version. 2. Only 5 reviews are shown, which are, as far as I can tell, the "most helpful" reviews across ALL versions of the app. All 5 of my reviews are from 2008 and 2009. There is no option to view more reviews or switch to "most recent".
Wow, I really like these changes. I hope they make it through to the release version. For smaller devs, the fact that ratings were "reset" after each update was a huge disincentive to update.
I also like that helpful reviews are shown for all versions. It wasn't great to update when doing so would make you "lose" good, in-depth reviews from previous versions that were pushed under reviews for the latest version.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been burned by these issues before. I updated some apps to add new functionality, and it took half a year or more of building up new ratings and reviews to get sales back up to what they were before the updates. And I still don't think my apps have fully recovered.
Wow, I really like these changes. I hope they make it through to the release version. For smaller devs, the fact that ratings were "reset" after each update was a huge disincentive to update.
I also like that helpful reviews are shown for all versions. It wasn't great to update when doing so would make you "lose" good, in-depth reviews from previous versions that were pushed under reviews for the latest version.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been burned by these issues before. I updated some apps to add new functionality, and it took half a year or more of building up new ratings and reviews to get sales back up to what they were before the updates. And I still don't think my apps have fully recovered.
The main issue is that if you've had an app in the store for a long time, users will see very old reviews that don't reflect the current state of the application.
My guess is these changes will not make it into the final version. The fact that you can only see 5 reviews in total tells me they're still working on that section of the application.
The main issue is that if you've had an app in the store for a long time, users will see very old reviews that don't reflect the current state of the application.
My guess is these changes will not make it into the final version. The fact that you can only see 5 reviews in total tells me they're still working on that section of the application.
I agree that you should be able to see more than just 5 reviews, but I do like that they're sorted by helpfulness.
As for old reviews not reflecting the current state of the app, that's more of a concern for devs who don't have stable apps or who have had problems with their apps in the past. Those devs might want reviews "reset" to get a clean slate or second chance. But for those of us with stable apps from the start, having the reviews reset is worse for us.
I agree that you should be able to see more than just 5 reviews, but I do like that they're sorted by helpfulness.
I think the better option would be to sort the reviews by most recent AND most helpful. However, given that you can only mark a review as helpful in iTunes and given that most people buy apps from their devices, using the "most helpful" metric at all seems kinda pointless. Also, I don't think you even need to own an app to mark one of its reviews as helpful, which makes it easily gamed.
bw748;436990 said:
As for old reviews not reflecting the current state of the app, that's more of a concern for devs who don't have stable apps or who have had problems with their apps in the past.
Not necessarily. In my experience, most negative reviews are a result of an app not having "X" feature. For example, with some of my apps users would see 4 year old reviews talking about missing features that I added 2+ years ago.
I think the better option would be to sort the reviews by most recent AND most helpful. However, given that you can only mark a review as helpful in iTunes and given that most people buy apps from their devices, using the "most helpful" metric at all seems kinda pointless. Also, I don't think you even need to own an app to mark one of its reviews as helpful, which makes it easily gamed.
Not necessarily. In my experience, most negative reviews are a result of an app not having "X" feature. For example, with some of my apps users would see 4 year old reviews talking about missing features that I added 2+ years ago.
I think sorting by helpfulness is the lesser evil because if you're talking about gaming the system, it's even easier to do so the way reviews are now. A single person can update a review, and it's instantly at the top of the list. That's worse than having multiple people vote on helpfulness.
As for negative reviews, most of the ones I've seen on various apps all over the app store are ones complaining of crashes or of a feature already included that isn't working correctly. Personally, for my apps, reviews for older versions are just as relevant as reviews for newer versions. So for me, having the reviews reset is bad. I'm sure it differs for different devs and from app to app.
I'm sure it differs for different devs and from app to app.
That's just it... for many apps, displaying very old reviews is only going to confuse potential customers.
A personal example:
My first app was a Sudoku app and the first version had a bug that would cause some generated puzzles to have multiple solutions. While I managed to fix the problem and issue an update within a few hours, it took Apple nearly 2 weeks to approve it.
In the meantime, I received dozens of 1 star reviews and my sales fell off a cliff. Obviously, those older reviews are no longer relevant but that's what people would see if the default is to display by most helpful for all versions.
But the reviews don't completely "reset". They're all still there and the app store app just shows the cumulative rating for all versions. Sure, iTunes says "we have not received enough ratings" but very few people buy apps through iTunes.
It's also my observation that older, popular apps have lower "normalized" cumulative ratings around 3.5 (maybe 4) stars. Newer, good apps typically have a higher cumulative rating of 4 stars (or higher). Because of this, I would argue that newer apps actually have an advantage following an update.
That said, I will acknowledge that some apps with a large number of loyal users (i.e. Instapaper) do receive an influx of new and updated reviews after an update.
My first app was a Sudoku app and the first version had a bug that would cause some generated puzzles to have multiple solutions. While I managed to fix the problem and issue an update within a few hours, it took Apple nearly 2 weeks to approve it.
In the meantime, I received dozens of 1 star reviews and my sales fell off a cliff. Obviously, those older reviews are no longer relevant but that's what people would see if the default is to display by most helpful for all versions.
I think we've come full circle in our discussion, lol. Your example is what I meant by wanting a clean slate. The problem is that what's good for one dev isn't good for another.
For example, let's say I have a Sudoko app with 500 good ratings, and you have one with 250 good ratings and 250 bad ratings (because of the bug you mentioned). Now, you update to fix the bug which resets your reviews. That's good for you, you get a clean slate. But I, on the other hand, have no incentive to update. It's better for me not to update so that my 500 good ratings don't get reset.
kmk;437005 said:
But the reviews don't completely "reset".
Right now (iOS 5), the overall average star rating completely resets. The average star rating a user sees is only that for the current version, so you lose ratings from the previous version that take time to build back up.
Reviews are not completely reset, but they are pushed down below those for the previous version. So if you have relevant reviews from previous versions, you lose those. Users are not going to read through many pages of reviews to get to the older ones. They'll just read the top ones which are for the latest version.
In my experience, the number of ratings matters to users, so having 500 good ratings is much better than 5 (which is what you'll start at with a new update). I'm pretty sure that if you ask a dev with an app that has built up a significant number of good ratings and reviews for the current version and is getting good sales, they'll be hesitant to update because of all of the above. By the way, everything I'm talking about has been my experience for paid apps. For free apps, ratings probably don't matter as much.
Apple needs to come up with a way to encourage updates and at the same time prevent gaming the system.
That's good for you, you get a clean slate. But I, on the other hand, have no incentive to update.
I don't feel apps should be forever tarnished because of one bug or a less then stellar first release. It goes both ways - without the "clean slate", developers would have little incentive to fix their apps. Developers would either abandon these apps (further cluttering the app store) or delete and resubmit them (bad for users that purchased the first version).
Regarding "no incentive to update" - how about adding features to stay competitive and to improve the app for existing users?
I also believe there's a growing number of "veteran" iOS users that now consider when an app was last updated before making a purchase. Interestingly enough, in the redesigned app store, there's now an option at the bottom of the app info screen to see the release notes for EVERY update. This obviously makes it easy to see how often and how many times the app has been updated.
bw748;437016 said:
having 500 good ratings is much better than 5 (which is what you'll start at with a new update).
True, but in my experience you see rapidly diminishing returns after a pretty low threshold. I've noticed little to no difference in sales when I have 10 vs 50 good ratings for the current version.
rocotilosPosts: 3,216iPhone Dev SDK Supporter, Registered Users
kmk;437005 said:
That's just it... for many apps, displaying very old reviews is only going to confuse potential customers.
A personal example:
My first app was a Sudoku app and the first version had a bug that would cause some generated puzzles to have multiple solutions. While I managed to fix the problem and issue an update within a few hours, it took Apple nearly 2 weeks to approve it.
In the meantime, I received dozens of 1 star reviews and my sales fell off a cliff. Obviously, those older reviews are no longer relevant but that's what people would see if the default is to display by most helpful for all versions.
Or, if you had lots of 4-5 stars in version 1.0, you'd also want those stars to remain in latest version right? So, it's not always bad to have previous version review/ratings, because those who voted 4-5 stars are happy, and they wont be redoing the rating again in the new version. Those who kept on reviewing normally are those who are dissatisfied with the app about something.
Just installed iOS 6 beta on my Iphone. They pros and cons for me are:
Pros:
- More screen estate for displaying app title, 2 rules in stead of 1. My app names have keywords in them, so they are shown more now.
- More information on app detail page: latest releasenotes, releasenote history, customers also bought.
- The show reviews button is always visible, so more in your face.
- Endless scrolling in top lists (no more "show 25 more" button), so people between the 25-50 ranking could expect more downloads because it is easier to reach.
Cons:
- You can like a app you don't own :(, so I think you will see more facebook campaigns such as "like this app you don't own for 200 points!!!"
- Getting to category toplist requires more taps and is not very intuitive for me
foany
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0 • Off Topic Insightful Disagree Dislike Like AwesomeI really dislike the featured apps section, it's the complete opposite of intuitive. Granted I've only had it for a few minutes, so my opinion my change very quickly. The top lists look as though it is more focused on the top 25 rather than getting exposure to as many apps in the top charts as possible.
Overall, I think the positives outweigh the negatives, and the design is truly spectacular - very pretty.
Download the #1 Free Laser App on the App Store.
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0 • Off Topic Insightful Disagree Dislike Like Awesome1. The ratings breakdown (similar to what you see in iTunes and on the iPad app) is for ALL versions. There is no option to view the ratings breakdown for the current version.
2. Only 5 reviews are shown, which are, as far as I can tell, the "most helpful" reviews across ALL versions of the app. All 5 of my reviews are from 2008 and 2009. There is no option to view more reviews or switch to "most recent".
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0 • Off Topic Insightful Disagree Dislike Like AwesomeGlad it shows all so u can't just erase bad but at the same time u don't get switched over to only 5 ratings when you really had more before the update.
2
Should b interesting but scares me comp could just vote up neg reviews like that.
Side note
facebook is going to b full of app ads good for word of mouth bad for people that use it to campaign.
Off topic
How does Xcode play with os6. I would love to beta test but I don't want any hasle with testing and deving my current apps
www.touchmint.com
Top Apps of the month:
Quiz and Flashcard Maker
Bracket Maker
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0 • Off Topic Insightful Disagree Dislike Like AwesomeI also like that helpful reviews are shown for all versions. It wasn't great to update when doing so would make you "lose" good, in-depth reviews from previous versions that were pushed under reviews for the latest version.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been burned by these issues before. I updated some apps to add new functionality, and it took half a year or more of building up new ratings and reviews to get sales back up to what they were before the updates. And I still don't think my apps have fully recovered.
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0 • Off Topic Insightful Disagree Dislike Like AwesomeMy guess is these changes will not make it into the final version. The fact that you can only see 5 reviews in total tells me they're still working on that section of the application.
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0 • Off Topic Insightful Disagree Dislike Like AwesomeAs for old reviews not reflecting the current state of the app, that's more of a concern for devs who don't have stable apps or who have had problems with their apps in the past. Those devs might want reviews "reset" to get a clean slate or second chance. But for those of us with stable apps from the start, having the reviews reset is worse for us.
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0 • Off Topic Insightful Disagree Dislike Like AwesomeAs for negative reviews, most of the ones I've seen on various apps all over the app store are ones complaining of crashes or of a feature already included that isn't working correctly. Personally, for my apps, reviews for older versions are just as relevant as reviews for newer versions. So for me, having the reviews reset is bad. I'm sure it differs for different devs and from app to app.
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0 • Off Topic Insightful Disagree Dislike Like AwesomeA personal example:
My first app was a Sudoku app and the first version had a bug that would cause some generated puzzles to have multiple solutions. While I managed to fix the problem and issue an update within a few hours, it took Apple nearly 2 weeks to approve it.
In the meantime, I received dozens of 1 star reviews and my sales fell off a cliff. Obviously, those older reviews are no longer relevant but that's what people would see if the default is to display by most helpful for all versions.
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0 • Off Topic Insightful Disagree Dislike Like AwesomeIt's also my observation that older, popular apps have lower "normalized" cumulative ratings around 3.5 (maybe 4) stars. Newer, good apps typically have a higher cumulative rating of 4 stars (or higher). Because of this, I would argue that newer apps actually have an advantage following an update.
That said, I will acknowledge that some apps with a large number of loyal users (i.e. Instapaper) do receive an influx of new and updated reviews after an update.
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0 • Off Topic Insightful Disagree Dislike Like AwesomeFor example, let's say I have a Sudoko app with 500 good ratings, and you have one with 250 good ratings and 250 bad ratings (because of the bug you mentioned). Now, you update to fix the bug which resets your reviews. That's good for you, you get a clean slate. But I, on the other hand, have no incentive to update. It's better for me not to update so that my 500 good ratings don't get reset. Right now (iOS 5), the overall average star rating completely resets. The average star rating a user sees is only that for the current version, so you lose ratings from the previous version that take time to build back up.
Reviews are not completely reset, but they are pushed down below those for the previous version. So if you have relevant reviews from previous versions, you lose those. Users are not going to read through many pages of reviews to get to the older ones. They'll just read the top ones which are for the latest version.
In my experience, the number of ratings matters to users, so having 500 good ratings is much better than 5 (which is what you'll start at with a new update). I'm pretty sure that if you ask a dev with an app that has built up a significant number of good ratings and reviews for the current version and is getting good sales, they'll be hesitant to update because of all of the above. By the way, everything I'm talking about has been my experience for paid apps. For free apps, ratings probably don't matter as much.
Apple needs to come up with a way to encourage updates and at the same time prevent gaming the system.
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0 • Off Topic Insightful Disagree Dislike Like AwesomeRegarding "no incentive to update" - how about adding features to stay competitive and to improve the app for existing users?
I also believe there's a growing number of "veteran" iOS users that now consider when an app was last updated before making a purchase. Interestingly enough, in the redesigned app store, there's now an option at the bottom of the app info screen to see the release notes for EVERY update. This obviously makes it easy to see how often and how many times the app has been updated. True, but in my experience you see rapidly diminishing returns after a pretty low threshold. I've noticed little to no difference in sales when I have 10 vs 50 good ratings for the current version.
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0 • Off Topic Insightful Disagree Dislike Like AwesomeDon't u have a problem when developing in XCode with beta version? :confused:
10 Detailed Steps to Submit Apps To AppStore
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0 • Off Topic Insightful Disagree Dislike Like Awesome10 Detailed Steps to Submit Apps To AppStore
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0 • Off Topic Insightful Disagree Dislike Like AwesomePros:
- More screen estate for displaying app title, 2 rules in stead of 1. My app names have keywords in them, so they are shown more now.
- More information on app detail page: latest releasenotes, releasenote history, customers also bought.
- The show reviews button is always visible, so more in your face.
- Endless scrolling in top lists (no more "show 25 more" button), so people between the 25-50 ranking could expect more downloads because it is easier to reach.
Cons:
- You can like a app you don't own :(, so I think you will see more facebook campaigns such as "like this app you don't own for 200 points!!!"
- Getting to category toplist requires more taps and is not very intuitive for me
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0 • Off Topic Insightful Disagree Dislike Like AwesomeThanks
10 Detailed Steps to Submit Apps To AppStore
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