With the New App Ratings in iOS 10.3 Apple Is Treating the Symptom and Not the Cause
Nobody likes apps that are constantly begging for reviews, especially when they are using modal dialogs for that. This makes user experience worse.
Apple decided to tackle this problem by introducing a system rating dialog for developers in iOS 10.3 with an idea to make it the only allowed way for asking a review some time in the future.
There is also a new magical switch in the system settings in iOS 10.3 that allows users to disable in-app ratings requests. You might think that this is a great idea and Apple is doing well by listening to their customers. If only things were that simple…
The New Dialog Is Always Presented Modally
There are different ways to ask a user for a review, but this is the worst way ever. What are the chances that a user will be happy about the interrupted user experience? I honestly believe that using this new diaglog from Apple is the most straightforward way to get a collection of one-star reviews.
There Is No Way for Apple to Actually Disable or Limit In-App Ratings
The new magical switch applies only to the new dialog. Even if Apple adds a new App Store Review rule that all apps should use that dialog only, there is no feasible way for Apple to actually enforce that rule. App review team at Apple spends about 2–3 minutes reviewing an app, it is almost impossible to understand how and when ratings are requested by an app within such a short period of time.
Blame Apple for the Current Mess With In-App Ratings
Ok, here is the most important point. What is the reason that developers so frequently ask their customers to review apps? Why do they do that so often? What is the underlying issue that should be fixed by Apple?
All App Store reviews are divided into “Current Version” and “All Versions” sections. Only ratings for the current version are displayed next to the app in the search results. Because of that, once a developer releases an update the reviews that were left for the previous versions are effectively worthless.
This is why developers ask users for a rating so often! Otherwise they will be at a significant disadvantage compared to other developers. Based on my experience, every time I release an update for Debit & Credit, downloads go down by 25–30% until new ratings are available.
Today developers who love releasing updates with new features are put at disadvantage by Apple because only current version ratings matter. They are forced to ask users for new ratings to restore current version rating. At the same time, those developers who abandoned their apps are doing just fine because of the ratings they accumulated many years ago.
I believe that Apple should not rely on current version ratings anymore. Ratings left for the last 6 or 12 months would be the most accurate description of how the app is actually doing. This way developers would not be punished for updating their apps, they will not beg their users to leave a rating after every update and abandoned apps will have far more accurate ratings on the App Store.
