alt Hacker NewsJust because “everyone does it” doesn’t mean you get a pass to do it too.
Nagging the user to “rate my app” is pure self-interest at the expense of user-experience. I rate any app that nags (ie: more than thrice) me to rate it too. OTOH if I genuinely like some software I’m happy to rate it highly.
Bottom line: It’s not my job to help sell your software - that’s your job. As for trying to get Apple in on the “screw what the user wants to do, there’s STARVING INDY DEVELOPRS that need ratings!”, I don’t think I’ve come across anything so self-serving recently.. Wow.
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> I rate any app that nags (ie: more than thrice) me to rate it too.
Interesting. Apps can only ask three times a year (from Apple's documentation, my highlights):
"Asking for ratings and reviews
You can ask users to rate and review your app at appropriate times throughout the user experience. Make the request when users are most likely to feel satisfaction with your app, such as when they’ve completed an action, level, or task. Make sure not to interrupt their activity. The SKStoreReviewController API lets you give users an easy way to provide feedback about your app. You can prompt for ratings up to three times in a 365-day period."
Negative reviews inflate genuine good software just because positive reviews are simply not written usually. people like to complain and not to give positive feedback if things work as expected.
Wait, do developers control when those nags appear or does Apple? I originally thought it was the devs, but then they all were so consistent in presentation I thought maybe Apple prompted on every app after some amount of time.
I originally rated any app that nagged 1 star, but stopped after thinking that maybe they couldn't control it. But it sounds like maybe they can?
Not to excuse nag screens but I think the real question is: How should discovery work?
Riding the wave of success doesn't say much about quality. How could one even begin to measure quality?
I might enjoy and use an application for decades. That only makes me ignorant about the alternatives.
This! Personally I feel overwhelmed by dialog boxes and other trash content that gets in the way of content I need to see to do my tasks.
I want to see somebody punished whenever something appears. I'd like to see the EU legislators who gave us these GDPR popups treated like war criminals and jailed if they leave the EU (e.g. they've cost us billions in productivity) I'd like to see harsh treatment for those discriminatory and accessibility-violating "click on the traffic lights" popups, that stupid anime girl who is on way too many open source web sites, etc.
And I think apps that show one of those nags should be kicked immediately out of the app store.
> As for trying to get Apple in on the “screw what the user wants to do, there’s STARVING INDY DEVELOPRS that need ratings!”, I don’t think I’ve come across anything so self-serving recently.. Wow.
I think you misunderstood the post. I would like to abolish the entire crowdsourced rating and review system. I don't want to request ratings at all. However, if Apple insists on having crowdsourced ratings and reviews in the App Store, then I think it would be better to have Apple-initiated email requests that don't interrupt the workflow of users instead of apps requesting reviews while users are using them.
Did you read the whole thing? His reasoning is difficult to dismiss as "well, you shouldn't do it anyway".
Nagware will always get a bad review from me if I paid money for it.
I'm your customer, not your marketing team.
The nags seem to always come at the worst time. Open an app to look up something and I have to click to close all the bubbles about what's new and "you like this? please review us!". It's incredibly frustrating.