Steve Troughton-Smith

"I scraped 500+ one-star App Store reviews so you don't have to. Here's what actually killed their ratings"

TL;DR
1) Unwanted notifications
2) Forced account creation at launch
3) 'Slow'
N) Ads. No dark mode. Not saving logins. No timely customer support

Grain of salt required, as sourcing is flimsy, but interesting.

https://www.reddit.com/r/vibecoding/comments/1rg7sdh/i_scraped_500_onestar_app_store_reviews_so_you/

Feb 27 at 3:47pmIvory for Mac
Show threadMichal BryxĂ­Feb 27
@stroughtonsmith Can I somehow tag every corporation I have to have installed app from?
Show threadBuckFeb 27
@stroughtonsmith "Forced account creation at launch" almost always gets an insta-delete from me.
Show threadChris Silverman 🌻Feb 27

@stroughtonsmith This is interesting, although I'm not sure that devs simply don't realize they're delivering a bad experience. It's more that they're incentivized to do this.

I tend towards restraint as far as harsh reviews, especially for indie apps, but I'll admit I've given one-stars for both of the top two: obnoxious notifications and forced account creation. On the few occasions devs replied, the response was basically "yeah, we know people hate those, but we get sales/data from that."

Show threadChris Silverman 🌻Feb 27
@stroughtonsmith Some will say that response reflects the reality of commercial app development. Maybe they're right. The point is that it makes no difference to me; as a user, I don't want to use obnoxious—deliberately obnoxious—software, and I don't.
Show threadBen LingsFeb 27
@stroughtonsmith 100% of the reviews I’ve left have been 1 star “sends spam notifications”
Show threadMieszko ĹšlusarczykFeb 27
@stroughtonsmith hmm, nothing about the size? There’s nothing that annoys me as much as an app that lets me control my dishwasher and takes 800MB+. They don’t pay for storage upgrades on iPhone;)
Show threadThomas MutschellerFeb 28
@stroughtonsmith ngl but seems to be the obvious catch. neglecting basic functionality and customer support.
Show threadflankerFeb 28
@stroughtonsmith I guess the somewhat flip-side is many users expect no ads and a 100-strong customer support team answering 24x7 while still expecting the app to cost them nothing.
Those first 2 though … yep!