Mastodawn

Jan Walzer 4d ago

Dear app developers,
I have never had the desire to review an app. Prompting me to leave a review doe not make me want to do it any more. Making me click multiple times to dismiss your "nudge" and get back to using the app just makes me want to uninstall it.
Sincerely,
Every smartphone user ever

kajer :unknown:4d ago

can we also add aboilishing "new user" tutorials to that demand too?

Jake Williams 4d ago

@kajer Sure, but at least that's a one time thing.

kajer :unknown:4d ago

@malwarejake until you reinstall for literally any reason, and get mandatory new-user hints and tips and intros and tutorials....

I have 8000 hours in this program, I'm not a new user damnit.

references: gestures broadly at ALL SOFTWARE

[object Object]4d ago

@kajer @malwarejake or some PM decides whichever new feature you don’t care about is worth a forced new user flow aka an ad

sometimes when you start using the software for the first time it just dumps these on you for random features

@kajer not showing any new user hints would require the app to save some data about you and remember that you have used the app before even if you uninstall the app. Would you be fine with this?

kajer :unknown:4d ago

@barsk one would think a simple "are you new here? y/n" prompt wold be just fine.

OoBE should ALWAYS be optional. Always

@kajer an easy way to skip everything is nice.

Matt Blaze 4d ago

@malwarejake I'm especially put off by the popups that interrupt me as soon as I open the app. "Do you love the FedEx app?" No, I just want to track my fucking package. And that's a really stalker-y way to ask, frankly.

Cassander 4d ago

@mattblaze @malwarejake Yeah, most apps aren't special or lovable. They're meant to be functional. They have a function that they can complete or not complete. If my can opener made me stop and review it before I could open a goddamned can of beans, I'd throw it through a window.

Matt Blaze 4d ago

@drsbaitso @malwarejake I'm imaging how this would go in the pre-app era, when you had to call a human agent to track the package:

"Fedex, can I help you?"

"Yes, I'd like to track a package."

"OK, but first, I need you to tell me if you love me."

"What?"

"I can't do this anymore if I don't feel loved and appreciated."

"Um, I just want to track a package."

"Yes, yes. Of course you do, That's what I thought. I suppose I'm not worthy of love. I have to hang up now. I'll be thinking of you."

Cassander 4d ago

@mattblaze @malwarejake "Oh, I'll be thinking of you too. Not fondly."

Jernej Simončič �4d ago

@mattblaze @malwarejake I leave a negative review every time this happens.

@jernej__s
This is the way
@mattblaze @malwarejake

Matt Blaze 4d ago

@Kishi @jernej__s @malwarejake I wonder if it is, in a world where metrics of “engagement” are more valued than actual quality.

@mattblaze @jernej__s @malwarejake

Yeah, there is that as well, but at that point, they might as well begin counting "tap away or close" as a positive engagement. Not sure if we're at that point, but right now, everything stupid seems plausible.

argentum 4d ago

@Kishi @mattblaze @jernej__s @malwarejake that is if your review even stands! I’ve had a couple of reviews taken down for “Violation of Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions”. I think devs report bad reviews to avoid their rating from going down.

@argentum @Kishi @mattblaze @jernej__s @malwarejake don't make the review to bad or hard. Give the app half the stars or points or whatever and note the review function brought you here. After that mention the usual problems of, e.g. package pickup boxes with bluetooth and their apps ...

@mattblaze @malwarejake worse, most of them shouldn't even be apps to begin with! I just want to track my fucking package; that's a web page not a goddamn app!

Jake Williams 4d ago

@mattblaze Right?! There must be better ways to work the request into the application flow instead of it getting in the way of what you were doing.

@mattblaze @malwarejake An authentication token I’m forced to use for work popped one of those review begs up for me recently *before it let me see the token code*. The best user opinion an application like that can ever hope for is “inoffensive”, and getting in my way makes it decidedly not inoffensive.

abadidea 4d ago

@mattblaze @malwarejake someone observed to me recently that, even though the money to pay for the delivery ultimately came from you, delivery services don’t consider you, the recipient, their paying customer. It really stuck with me how it is a bit of a perverse incentive structure…

Simon Zerafa 4d ago

@0xabad1dea @mattblaze @malwarejake

Ditto for Amazon reviews, or delivery reviews and ratings.

The package arrived. They already know this. Why ask me if it was good, bad or indifferent?! 🙄🤷‍♂️

Jon Wood 4d ago

@mattblaze @malwarejake a little inside baseball: they prompt that way because that popup isn’t the review request. That’s the pre-review request, if you say no it’s all you’ll see, if you say yes they’ll then pop the OS review request dialogue having pre-filtered anyone who was going to leave a bad review. Yes, that’s as shady as it sounds.

Reijo Pitkänen 4d ago

@malwarejake @petrillic Amen!

dismiss, dismiss, rate zero stars & turn off notifications.

If they do some sort of in app spam, I skip to leave a review and delete.

I am not your advertising or beta test agency.

Charlie Stross 4d ago

@malwarejake Apps that persistently nudge me to leave a review get a one-star review: "nagware, forces you to leave a review, DO NOT USE".

Monte Freeman 4d ago

@cstross @malwarejake @chetwisniewski I especially detest the apps that nag me for a review *as part of the initial installation*, before I have ever used the app!

Free PSA for App Developers:
If you ask me for a review of your app, before I have exited the App Store during the installation process; you WILL get a One Star review. 😡😡😡
Your app may very well be the best app in the history of apps, but that kind of desperate begging for a rating and review; will absolutely backfire on you.

John Ulrik 4d ago

@malwarejake Especially if you have the “Don’t asks for reviews” flag set. 🙄

Saucetweet 4d ago

@malwarejake I normally review apps that constantly nudge with a 1 star.

Phipe 💳 Multipass 🍵🍺🖖🏼4d ago

@malwarejake @sebsauvage

Hoooooo yeeeesss !!!

And also docker is NOT an app/program ....

@malwarejake Anything that ever asks me to review it gets 1 star.

@malwarejake I actually have sometimes wanted to review an. But only when it's a POS

Peter Fisher 4d ago

@malwarejake Just give it one star and say you're doing it because the prompt to review is intrusive.

Sablebadger 4d ago

@malwarejake I've worked in mobile gaming for years. The reason they push so hard is because app store ranking has a DIRECT correlation to number of users coming into the app, and thus engagement and money.

The PM will push the prompt when they fix any issues that were dragging down metrics. New features can do that, but very often fixing a bug will do it too.

There is so much competition in app stores now-a-days, it's hard to break through.

As a user, I totally agree with you though. 100%

Pomegranate_Stew 4d ago

@malwarejake
The only app I ever reviewed was the one that declared that it needed to take my contacts with its next update. I read that, did not do the update, left a review saying why I was deleting it, and then did so.

Tom Harrington 4d ago

@malwarejake @robpike I agree, from a phone user’s perspective. But having been on the dev side, this happens because people pay attention to ratings and reviews. People optimize for the thing they’re judged by, so app developers need to get people doing this as long as people keep judging them by the result.

@malwarejake
Hmm, they usually dont ask again if you go into the reviews area and then click cancel, orrrr just give a 1 star review due to their review begging

KevinOnEarth 4d ago

@yugthebug @malwarejake
THAT would surely be the biggest risk to any incessant app-review reminders. Counter-productive.
I don't use many apps but I did give #MagicEarth 5*.

@malwarejake
> I have never had the desire to review an app. Prompting me to leave a review doe not make me want to do it any more.

So you are helping the big corpos suffocate small independent app makers. Because reviews are the only way to have a few other people being given a chance to see this app name on their screen. The other way is to shell-out around a half a million dollars for ads and "promotions". App makers beg for reviews, because they are now are unable to outbid scammers.

@ohir @malwarejake email spammers make the same argument. “I’m just a small business, if my email is blocked I can’t afford to compete with the big companies and their million dollar ad budgets.” Do you read their spam?

@mathew
> Do you read their spam?

Strawman.

I do not _install_ spam messages for the features I want to use on my phone.

@ohir @malwarejake You don’t get spam for things you’ve purchased? I do. And I get spam prompts from apps where I haven’t opted to purchase them or any in-app upgrade.

@mathew
> You don’t get spam for things you’ve purchased?

Not a single piece now (for what I purchased). I am in Europe and I never in my life had opted-in to the spam. If I saw spam coming after a purchase I for my and my fellow compatriots benefit lent a 30m of my time to prepare GDPR report on that culprit seller. Each time. Two or three times a year it was, last case iirc past November.

The out of EU spam I do not see as it gets filtered (the whitelist knows whom I sent first).

> And I get spam prompts from apps where I haven’t opted to purchase them or any in-app upgrade.

You have not purchased but you keep them on your phone, so I assume these have a value for you. In which case why do you feel entitled to use their main functionality then balk on their devs proposal to return the favor by giving a few minutes of your time back. If there is functionality worth to keep, this functionality costed months of developer time.

@ohir @malwarejake OK, so you admit you filter out spam even when it's about products you use.

Regarding "returning the favor", the App Store terms of service explicitly prohibit requiring a review in order to use an app, so you're trying to guilt-trip me to work around the ToS. That seems pretty shady.

Web site operators use the same type of argument: "You read our web site, so I assume it has value to you. In which case why do you feel entitled to read it but block the ads? Why won't you enter your email address when we ask? Why won't you share a link to this campaign on social media?"

I mean, do you enter your email address to get promotional email when apps and web sites demand it? Do you turn off your browser's ad-blocking and tracking cookie protection? Tracking you and viewing ads helps their business, and is part of the implied contract for providing you with the content, right? Sorry, but I don't buy any of it.

Yes, it sucks that indie app developers have a hard time getting found via the App Store. It sucks for me as a potential customer too, because it's impossible to find good one-time-purchase apps on the App Store. I waste hours trawling through web sites trying to find good apps for [whatever], because there's zero chance I'll find them through App Store rankings. But I don't think trying to game the ratings is going to solve that problem; I haven't seen any improvement in discoverability since everyone started putting in nags to review their app, and the ratings are effectively meaningless at this point.

I think it'd be better to try serving your customers, not being annoying or abusive, and relying on word of mouth. I'm old-fashioned that way. I promote small devs' apps on Reddit all the time — even ones I decided not to buy after a trial period but thought were really good.

@mathew
> you filter out spam even when it's about products you use.

Nope. I filter out spam. I never subscribed to spam about what I purchased. I actively went after the sellers who tried to spam me without my consent (I never gave in the first place).

> do you enter your email address to get promotional email when apps and web sites demand it?

Never did, never will.

> but block the ads?

Touché. With a disclaimer: there are websites that I reward after deeming them briefly useful. I click the temp permission for ads after I read and am AFK, so website owners have 5 to 10 minutes of the revenue. Or had, the G killed their revenue, likely.

> I promote small devs' apps on Reddit all the time — even ones I decided not to buy after a trial period but thought were really good.

And this info is what the OP lacked. Respect! And thank you. Let's go back to fighting for #noai :))

Enno Rehling 4d ago

@malwarejake "ask me later"

@malwarejake @robpike I absolutely ALWAYS do a review when asked in this fashion.

It is always a complete excoriation coupled with the lowest star rating available.

@malwarejake Nag me for a review or a survey if you want some negative feedback

Merovius 4d ago

@malwarejake @robpike Every time this annoys me, I leave a 1* review – they insisted, after all…

Anton Piatek 4d ago

@malwarejake @OpinionatedGeek I'm getting to the point of leaving 1 star reviews of "keeps insisting on a review"

@sldrant @malwarejake Funnily enough TrustPilot took down my review of a service where I said much the same thing you said. I gave up trusting TrustPilot after that.

@malwarejake “okay I’ll give you a review but you’re not gonna like it”

Lunar 🛸 ♾3d ago

@malwarejake On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend [insert SaaS app here] to a friend or colleague?