Neven Mrgan's tumbl: Apple's iOS app ratings

Apple has so far released twelve iOS apps. They are:

  • Texas Hold’em
  • Remote
  • Keynote Remote
  • MobileMe iDisk
  • MobileMe Gallery
  • iBooks
  • Apple Store
  • Find My iPhone
  • iMovie
  • Pages
  • Numbers
  • Keynote

I took a minute to calculate the average (mean) of these apps’ App Store ratings: 3.5 stars (3.41…

There’s also a strong negative bias to star ratings, in general. iOS only prompts users to rate an app during the process of deleting an app. To offer a positive review requires a user to go back into the iTunes store from their PC or via the App Store app, search the app they already own, and then seek the ratings interface which on the iPhone is a few taps away… all to rate an app they love. CORRECTION: As jeffrock informed me, it seems they recently got rid of this rate-on-delete on iOS4. Not sure if it was with iOS4 or subsequently, (because I swear I did it within the last couple weeks… maybe that was on iPad) but either way, this should help.

mrgan

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  1. whileyouweregone reblogged this from mrgan and added:
    Neven Mrgan wrote an incisive post in which he used...Apple’s home-produced apps to point...
  2. claude reblogged this from mrgan
  3. iphoneyou reblogged this from mrgan
  4. bananacasts said: I recall a wise recommendation years ago (maybe on A List Apart) suggesting that five-point rating systems are flawed because it direct most people to the middle (non-confrontational) choice rather than the more “good” or “bad” choice.
  5. jeffrock said: Have you noticed rate on delete in iOS 4? I think they got rid of it.
  6. micahtcollins reblogged this from mrgan and added:
    strong negative bias...star ratings, in general. iOS only prompts users to rate an app...
  7. brianericford said: I dunno. Given that many base their reviews on changed icons (this app used to be great, the new icon sucks! I’m taking away three stars until you fix it!) whether an app “should” be free (when it’s $1.99) I think I’d worry about other things.
  8. chriskalani said: Ebay did that sort of thing too. I always loved seeing retorts from sellers such as: “This man is lying”.
  9. mrgan posted this