The best way to get feedback from users would be for Apple to provide, as part of the iOS API, a widget that lets you do the rating <i>right there</i> in the app itself.<p>When prompted 'Would you like to rate this app?', if you choose 'Yes', show a ratings widget and comment box right there in the dialog without booting you to the App Store.
I am using similar idea in one of my Windows apps -- it has a one-time notification that prompts the user to join a mailing list or subscribe to the Twitter feed [1]. After much experimenting I have converged to the following criteria:<p><pre><code> The app has been up for at least 5 minutes
&&
It was first run at least 7 days ago
&&
It (executed primary function) no more than 12 hours ago
&&
It (executed primary function) at least 3 times
&&
There was some user activity in last 60 seconds
</code></pre>
The app is of a service nature, it runs in a background, so some conditions are unique to that, but the general idea is the same - talk to users that are engaged and happy rather than to all of them. Seems to be working really well so far.<p>[1] <a href="http://bvckup.com/tmp/notification.png" rel="nofollow">http://bvckup.com/tmp/notification.png</a>
Another thing that should be mentioned is timing. I noticed that Cut the Rope put in a request right at the end of the first group of levels, and to boot, they made the final level of the group really easy to get you feeling smart and euphoric. Sure, 5 stars!<p>While I'm not sure what the "euphoric moment" will be in my app, it's very wise to time your reminders to be placed in strategic areas associated with positive emotion: the end of a task, a major completion.
Apple has changed the review process to be less biased. Not sure when it was (somewhere around 4.0 launch last year) but they no longer prompt users to rate an app during the uninstall process.<p>I too really dislike being asked to rate an app. Especially since there's never a good time for this. Most of the time I've see this on my phone is when I launch an app for the 5th or 6th time. I launched the app to use it, not to review it.<p>We all hate the bad reviews. But don't start doing this. It's just bad user experience.
We saw a huge boost in number of reviews, overall rating, and sales when we started to solicit users in TapTyping (went from 3.5 to 4.5 stars). We made sure to only ask people once they had typed 2300 characters which equates to 3-4 speed tests or 1.5 typing lessons. Obviously the solicitation critera will be different for every app.<p>Not sure why you need a 3rd party library to do this though, it's pretty straight forward.
Writing from the developers side, this type of functionality is extremely useful. Many products are review driven, and getting reviews is not easy. Reviews tend to fuel traffic and demand especially in the App store context.<p>But as a user, I strongly dislike being spammed. Here, what seems nice is that it waits until 30 days use before asking and only asks once per version, which is good for multiple reasons. (I'd likely personally keep it to once ever though)
I'm often very surprised by the amount of bad reviews users provide just because of minor issues or unrealistic user expectations. Developers have no chance to explain those, often unnecessary, reviews.
Of course you have the usual reviewers that couldn't be bothered to rate anything unless they have a problem with the app, but additionally there's such an amount of ignorance that one feels like reading youtube comments.<p>Right now the official twitter app is being downrated into oblivion here in germany (1,5 stars) due to the introduction of that trend bar. From one of the best twitter clients to One and a half star. Really? You don't have to like that bar and most people certainly don't but does it affect your twitter experience in such a bad way that those one star ratings are justified. I doubt it.<p>That said, app reviews seem to be used as kind of punishment by users instead of providing helpful feedback.<p>Therefor i can see that asking users who frequently use your app to rate it makes a lot of sense from a developers perspective. Additionally those developers should have the option to provide highlighted answers to reviews or weigh in on unjustified user statements.
I've implemented something similar on my apps, and I have to say, it works. Most users (including myself) simply won't give a good review unsolicited. If the request pops up and they like the app, it won't be that much of a nuisance (they can make it go away forever).<p>The trick is getting the timing right. Wait long enough that they've used it a few times and have actually had a chance to form an opinion. Otherwise it's just annoying.
I also had awesome results from asking for reviews using appirater. I have mine set for 20 days and 20 uses. (They will not be asked to review until they have been using it for at least 20 days and have used the app at least 20 times)<p>I now have over 50 reviews for the current version with a 4-5 star average.<p><a href="http://itunes.apple.com/ee/app/icross-wod-free/id397702723?mt=8" rel="nofollow">http://itunes.apple.com/ee/app/icross-wod-free/id397702723?m...</a>
Appirater looks like a great tool to get good reviews. Inspired by this blogpost (and because I don't make iOS apps) I decided to create an Android port for it this morning as a gift to myself and HN of course ;-)<p>Feedback is greatly appreciated.<p><a href="https://github.com/Huppie/Appirater-for-Android" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Huppie/Appirater-for-Android</a>
Here is a simple Android implementation: <a href="http://www.androidsnippets.com/prompt-engaged-users-to-rate-your-app-in-the-android-market-appirater" rel="nofollow">http://www.androidsnippets.com/prompt-engaged-users-to-rate-...</a>
I recently added Appirater in an update to one of my apps and I believe has really helped gather positive reviews.<p>Getting the timing right is a bit tricky - I've opted to prompt the user after ten uses at a point where interaction with the app won't be obstructed by the alert.<p>As a side note, I think that the alerts should be shown only once. I was using another app that would prompt every other time to rate and the default dismiss button was "Remind me later"...very annoying.
So true. I added code to ask regular users to rate the app and received a lot of 4/5 star reviews. Ask happy customers and they'll willingly give your app a good rating.
For CribQ (housing maps from Craigslist) we prompt for ratings. It sucks to bug users but it also sucks to build a great product and not have people find it. To the people complaining about the experience, think of the experience of the developer to balance that feeling out.<p>We've also had issues with what seem to be targetted 1 star ratings with no reviews. Every new version that comes out we instantly get a bunch of these, and I have suspicions about who they come from. Almost all written reviews are 4 or 5 stars.
I remember a friend of mine was invited to write a chapter for a Java book for a very popular, very successful and prestigious publisher; the book wasn't even out yet but had a page on amazon and they made him ask all his friends and family to write a positive and "believable" review like "it is an excellent introduction to blablabla, this and that thing could be better/more detailed but overall best book ever!!!111"<p>They justified that by "well, yea those are sort of fake review but everyone does it so it is ok"