The best way to get a review inside your app

There are a lot of ways to get a review in the App Store. The simple solution is asking for it inside an app. A few weeks ago Den Zhdanov from the Readdle Team wrote a blog post about it. Today we got another opinion from the developers of the Castro podcasting app.

While this is a simple solution, I don’t think it works. And Ged Maheux from Iconfactory has a good point here:

“Asking for a review in release notes for a top 10 app (currently #2) isn’t the same as asking in a normal app. Don’t be naïve.”

“This is esp. true with automated updates in iOS 7. Very few people look at release notes anymore.”

I suggest that the best way to get a review from a user is not to ask whether or not he wants to leave a review, but where he wants to leave it:

Do you like our app? Choose where you want to leave a review:
(App Store)
(Twitter)
(Cancel)

Why? In iOS7 Apple dramatically changed the way to leave a reviews: the user needs to make few more clicks than before. And this is where Twitter becomes the simple way: the user is two clicks away from posting his review (or your default “Awesome #app by @developer” tweet). Of course Facebook is an alternative here, but Facebook doesn’t have good search or hashtag management.

And this is a powerful solution. I think this scheme will work best. Who will try first?