Originally published at: https://tidbits.com/2018/11/30/david-barnard-explains-how-to-game-the-app-store/
Developer David Barnard is tired of scammy copycat App Store apps, and he’s divulging all of these developers’ tricks in an effort to call Apple’s attention to them.
I try to immediately delete any app that violates common standards for providing the best user experience, such as prompting me for a rating or touting other apps, but these invasions are so common that it can be hard to maintain that policy.
Agree. A few of my must have apps keep asking for ratings, so I suspect ratings have more relevance to developers than I had imagined. With some many of them faked, I don’t usually bother to read most of them.
-Al-
I guess that explains why I pretty much gave up on the App stores a year or two ago.
I too more or less gave up on the app stores. I’ll download an app if I read about it somewhere else or if it is recommended by a friend. There is just too much junk in there to find something that is really good and useful. It’s become a needle in a haystack thing.
I think it’s mainly Apple’s fault that the app stores have become what they are. Apart from the things mentioned in the article Apple should take care of, I think Apple should allow a free trial period for paid apps, and allow for paid upgrades in some way.
I always found it odd, that when I do look at an App that Apple has highlighted, how many times I find it with bad ratings and problems. I would think that ratings would be one of the ways they determine something is good. Of course, it could be the competition giving bad reviews to effect buying. Ratings seem like a good idea, but, like Amazon ratings, may not really tell you anything.
That would be a vote for trial versions of apps.
I have exactly the same experience, several high-visibility apps that I’d have a tough time doing without continue to pester me for an endorsement after every upgrade. Would it be all that difficult to program things to skip me if I didn’t review the previous version?
And review ratings? I primarily only look at the two and three stars and the percentages. After being burned a few times, I’ve figured out that many, many of the five stars are faked or they are written by people who won’t admit that something they paid money for might not actually be a “to-die for” app. And it’s difficult to determine if the one stars are accurate or being written by a competitor or just a rascal.