App Store Now Requires Developers To Use Official API To Request App Ratings, Disallows Custom Prompts (9to5mac.com)

One of the new App Store policy changes made this week is the addition of section 1.1.7, which requires developers to use the official in-app rating UI added in iOS 10.3 and states that they "will disallow custom review prompts" going forward. 9to5Mac reports: When the new App Store rating API was introduced in the iOS 10.3 beta period at the start of the year, adoption was optional but Apple warned that it would eventually become mandatory. It seems that time has come. Here's the relevant addition to the App Store Review guidelines: "Use the provided API to prompt users to review your app; this functionality allows customers to provide an App Store rating and review without the inconvenience of leaving your app, and we will disallow custom review prompts." The language is pretty clear-cut, use the Apple API and stop using custom implementations. The change to the Apple API has some advantages and drawbacks for developers and users.

Comments

Shrinkage

[turkeydance]

ever shrinking

Re:Shrinkage

[Anonymous Coward]

Gimme a break. The water is cold!

Impetus for change

[Presence Eternal]

This kind of thing is pretty much why my next phone will be an iphone (if it will fit in a proper case). Love my Note 4 to death, love Nova Launcher, but I'm flat out done with verizdroid. Since I have to pick my poison, I'll choose to be ripped off on the hardware but otherwise treated like an actual customer.

GOOD

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm trying to get something done and I get a damn pop up. I don't want to rate your goddamn app. I want to finish my task and get back to real life.

Re:GOOD

[Cmdln Daco]

The fix is for us to all start giving a rating like 'I would have given the App five stars, but it kept spamming me to rate it, so it gets one star.'

If 10% of us did this, App developers would be *afraid* to pop up their spam prompt.

Re:GOOD

[Anonymous Coward]

I do this all the time :) Ask me for a review and it's going to be one start for sure

Re:I don't use Apple products

[Just Some Guy]

They got you to comment on one, so it served its purpose.

Re:I don't use Apple products

[I'm New Around Here]

Yep. And I got modded down, so I burned up a point from someone who would have otherwise used it on an important issue. I'll call it even.

Amazon needs to control this

[Anonymous Coward]

So many requests for ratings, usually from the smaller players.

Re:Amazon needs to control this

[Anonymous Coward]

Nearly every single app does the request to be rated thing. Some more than others. I think it's time to use the API route and reject requests for ratings once dismissed once.

serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is the "appy app troll apps! guy" when the article is actually about apps?

Finally. A good change

[thewolfkin]

I don't even use apple products but this is a good idea. If you're gonna nag me at least give me a) a consistent experience and b) a way to do it without leaving the app. No more trying to decipher the UI to find the "Not Now" button.

Re:Finally. A good change

[anss123]

EA had some popup in a game that was so hard to decipher that it was difficult to give it anything but five stars, and also gave you a reward if you did press that five star button. I think this is made to avoid that silliness.

That said, app store/play store/windows store ratings have consistently been worthless. If an app is utter crap, it might get 4 1/2 stars. I don't know if this is because apps game the system, but the end result is the same, ratings means nothing.

Amazon/Steam is better, but even there middling products gets "very positive" scores. It's kind off the opposite of what I'd expect, as people who dislike stuff tends to talk the loudest.

Re:Finally. A good change

[Anonymous Coward]

Further to that, the Apple built in way of doing it provides a one-stop opt-in to disabling all apps from ever being allowed to nag you.

Re:Finally. A good change

[v1]

A) stop apps from nagging you to rate them
B) stop apps from presenting inconsistent, confusing ratings popups that may trick you into rating higher
C) stop apps from bribing you for a higher-than-it-deserves rating
D) stop apps from just plain fraudulently submitting 5-star ratings on your behalf

This move isn't even slightly surprising.

(and how many times do I have to click the "NO THANKS!" button when asked to rate your app? once every time I launch it? Nevermind that I've already rated it 3-4 times, each one lower than the last! idiots.)

Re:Finally. A good change

[swimboy]

I've run into a few apps that ask "Do you like this app?" and if you answer yes, it would ask you to rate the app. If you said no, it wouldn't prompt you to rate the app. This is probably one of the other reasons that Apple is making their API mandatory.

Re:Finally. A good change

[Anonymous Coward]

Definitely. The Reddit app does this on the iPhone right now. If you like the app, your get prompted to rate it on the app store. If you say your not enjoying the app, then you get prompted to send feedback to the developers. This skews the rating system. But I also understand how the developers don't want to have to sort through all the reviews to find the suggestions to improve their app.

Re:Interesting!!

[arglebargle_xiv]

You forgot to mention that you'd would like to subscribe to his newsletter.

Re: I don't use Apple products

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds more like a double loss; you've wasted your time and caused someone to waste a mod point they might otherwise have used on something important. If there was the option to apply a 'dickhead' mod I'd have used it.

Re:I don't use Apple products

[Goaway]

Congratulations! Here is a ribbon that says "I DID NOT USE POPULAR THING" that you can wear to show your pride!

Re: I don't use Apple products

[I'm New Around Here]

Go ahead. Mod a pointless post down to oblivion. As I said, it keeps the idiots from modding the important topics.

As for being a "dickhead", I'm not the one wasting mod points over a post that basically says "I don't use Apple products, and ignore Apple stories."

Re:I don't use Apple products

[I'm New Around Here]

Thank you! I will print it out right now and put it on my favorite suit. :^P

Need a setting

[aardvarkjoe]

What Apple needs is a setting to disallow apps from requesting a rating. If I wanted to give your app a rating, I'd go to the app store to do it. Bugging me about it is just going to annoy me and get you a 1 star rating.

Re: Need a setting

[Anonymous Coward]

This setting will be there- you will be able to disable all these popups.

It's actually very good - speaking as an App dev

[seoras]

Since they introduced the API for prompting for ratings my own apps have done very well from it.
Prompting people to leave the app, go open the app store app and try to find the rating tab was useless.
I updated with this prompt a few months ago and I've collected as many ratings in 2 months as I'd normally get in 2 years.
It's raised the Apps ranking in keyword search and increased revenue.
I'm hoping that something similar happens on with Android and Google Play.

The other good bit of news last week was that your current version rating doesn't need to be lost.
That was stopping a lot of App developers doing regular updates.
If you released too often your App suffered in rankings and installs because it's current rating was either non-existant or small.
This is one aspect in which Play is better. It's single, global, rating system.
Why Apple is keeping the current version rating, I'm not entirely sure, but it should be scrapped.

Re:It's actually very good - speaking as an App de

[tlhIngan]

Why Apple is keeping the current version rating, I'm not entirely sure, but it should be scrapped.

Because there are apps (Example - Audyssey Music Player) that went from a paid app to a free app. The difference is the paid app gave you all the headphone profiles for free. The free app charged you $1.99 for every profile now.

So while the paid version got 5 stars from users who loved it and paid the $5 or whatever for it, when it went free and started charging people, it was getting 1-star ratings. Because naturally the people who loved it and used the free profiles suddenly got pissed off at having to pay for it. Or that what was formerly free is now an in-app purchase

Is it fair for an app to be 5 starts and screw over the users? If global app ratings became standard, then what happens are crap devs will simply publish an app with everything free to get the massive 5 star reviews to get featured. Then they'll make it all in-app purchases so what was formerly free is now $$$. Sure it hurts their ratings, but if they can exploit this to get on the featured list of popular apps, I'm sure the additional revenue will make up for the losses.

And then there are just the bum versions - a 5 star app may have a bad release and everything breaks inside it, so it deserves a one-star until the developer fixes it (I know several devs who have made bum releases).

Of course, this doesn't fix the biggest issue I saw - I seen several apps pop up the "Rate this app!" dialog just before the freemium trial period ended. So the user was doing really well and getting lots of whatevers, asked to rate the app and gives it 5 stars as they're having fun. 5 minutes later, they're being inundated with "You need to pay for this feature" nags begging to buy stuff.

So naturally that app gets good reviews because by the time they're hit up with the money, the 5 stars are left and they're all happy and great that the app is fun etc. And of course, the app will never ask for another review, so the user likely doesn't know how to update their review.

What I do

[jgoemat]

Every time an app prompts me to review it, I go to the app store and leave it a 1* review. I'll say in the review why I did it. I have apps that update often and ask me for a review every time. I hope Apple's API will prevent that prompt if you've already rated an app.