00:00:05 ◼ ► And I'm David Smith. Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started.
00:00:19 ◼ ► So I think we're going to start off by talking about a little bit of the way it's structured,
00:00:28 ◼ ► actually see that, and then towards the end I think we're going to dive into a little bit
00:00:32 ◼ ► of the way, as a developer, we should approach using, you know, asking for reviews, and dealing
00:00:42 ◼ ► So the review system in the App Store is very much, you can kind of tell that it is based on
00:00:56 ◼ ► the origins of the App Store is certainly all from iTunes, and so you can kind of see that.
00:01:00 ◼ ► The trickiness of that is that it was definitely not designed for something like software.
00:01:07 ◼ ► That changes all the time, that, or at least changes often, you know, a movie or something,
00:01:14 ◼ ► Software changes on a regular basis, and so it was definitely early on especially very awkward,
00:01:27 ◼ ► you get a bunch of one star reviews, you submit the fix, those one star reviews were still there.
00:01:32 ◼ ► And so eventually Apple went through and changed it so that now your reviews that are visible
00:01:38 ◼ ► initially to the user are always based on your most recent version, which is sometimes problematic
00:01:44 ◼ ► when you first release a new version, because it means that if you don't have, I think it's five
00:01:49 ◼ ► or so reviews for your application, you don't show it doesn't show any of them. I think it's
00:01:54 ◼ ► just essentially to prevent for the situation where if your first review was a one star review,
00:01:58 ◼ ► or your first review was a five star review, they're not going to say that that's the rating
00:02:03 ◼ ► for your your app, just because you only have one, so you need a certain number of them.
00:02:08 ◼ ► So it's a little awkward when you submit a new update, and someone comes to look at your app,
00:02:11 ◼ ► and it says, Hey, there's no, you know, there's no right ranking for this app, which I think is
00:02:17 ◼ ► an implication, at least if it's like, that's not good. It's not necessarily bad directly. But
00:02:22 ◼ ► anyway, that's sort of the way it goes. But I think star ratings, especially are a very powerful
00:02:30 ◼ ► indicator to our customers about the quality of our apps, because they're one of the few things
00:02:36 ◼ ► that are shown to the user when they first, you know, when they're in their first looking at the
00:02:40 ◼ ► list of apps. So, you know, that isn't from me, maybe it's the right way to say it, you know,
00:02:44 ◼ ► so they, if you search for one of my apps in the App Store, it pops up, you'll see the icon I made
00:02:50 ◼ ► the name, I gave it the first few lines of the description, it screenshots and then the stars.
00:02:54 ◼ ► And the stars are the only part of that that aren't isn't marketing isn't just me making stuff up,
00:03:00 ◼ ► because obviously, everyone's gonna say my app is great, my app is awesome. The stars have this
00:03:05 ◼ ► vague sense of objectivity to them. And so I think they have probably a fairly significant impact on
00:03:12 ◼ ► what customers think about an app and with how, you know, how likely they are to download it. And
00:03:17 ◼ ► I think I've seen that definitely in terms of my own downloads, where I know that if my star rating
00:03:23 ◼ ► starts to go down, or I do a doom update, and the star rating disappears for a couple of days,
00:03:28 ◼ ► that it can have a noticeable, you know, reduction in downloads that it's, you know, it's not like
00:03:34 ◼ ► they go to zero, but it's, you know, there's 20-30% of my downloads will start will go away
00:03:40 ◼ ► for a period until I'm able to build that up. And so I think it's something that we have to
00:03:45 ◼ ► deal with as developers to make sure that we're like, aware of that the importance of this and
00:03:50 ◼ ► then also, it's like really awkward because you get into all the tricky things that you can get
00:03:54 ◼ ► into where people start, you know, paying people to review their apps, paying people to give five
00:03:58 ◼ ► star reviews, which, you know, eventually, if Apple catches you doing that, they'll pull you out of
00:04:04 ◼ ► the App Store for that kind of thing. But it's this really strange tension of where is the appropriateness
00:04:10 ◼ ► there? You know, how is asking for a review fine? Is asking for a review in a in the app okay? Is it
00:04:17 ◼ ► fine out somewhere outside of the app, etc. But it's all a big mess. But ultimately, and probably
00:04:21 ◼ ► the best place to start is just the importance of that star rating and trying to keep it up.
00:04:32 ◼ ► the system is not perfect. We as developers have to basically grin and bear it, we have to work
00:04:38 ◼ ► around its flaws or tolerate its flaws or, you know, somehow just accommodate them. But also,
00:04:43 ◼ ► like, it's hard to imagine a lot of better systems. Like, I have tons of ideas and how they could
00:04:49 ◼ ► improve user reviews on the App Store. But it's not going to be like a massive improvement. Like,
00:04:56 ◼ ► it's if they're going to have user reviews at all, they're doing an okay job of it. Again, not
00:05:02 ◼ ► a wonderful job, but an okay job of it, you know, and again, like, changing it would be incremental,
00:05:06 ◼ ► not revolutionary. And I do think it is, it serves a useful purpose to have user reviews. Like,
00:05:15 ◼ ► you know, I've often thought, like, there's a lot of contexts in which there are no user reviews,
00:05:19 ◼ ► you know, on your own sales page. Like, that's how the web works. Like, you know, if you go to buy
00:05:25 ◼ ► software and you go to the company's website, they're not going to have a set, well, they
00:05:29 ◼ ► usually aren't going to have a section of random user submitted unfiltered reviews. You know,
00:05:35 ◼ ► they're going to handpick, you know, they're going to cherry pick what good things have been said
00:05:38 ◼ ► about them. And that's going to be all you see. And it's weird to have, like, on the page that
00:05:44 ◼ ► everybody will go to, even if somebody goes to your site for an iOS app, fully intends to get it,
00:05:49 ◼ ► you send them through to click through to the App Store page for them to actually download it,
00:05:53 ◼ ► and they're seeing those star reviews. So you can't escape, your customers will always see
00:05:58 ◼ ► those star reviews. So they are probably important from that point of view. However, I really don't
00:06:07 ◼ ► know how important the nitty-gritty details are for customers. So for instance, I think the average
00:06:14 ◼ ► star rating that people see is probably fairly important. You know, you said you've seen a dip
00:06:19 ◼ ► in downloads when it's been too early for a version to show a rating. Can you tell, have you,
00:06:25 ◼ ► have you isolated enough variables to really have any idea whether it matters, whether it's like
00:06:29 ◼ ► two star or four star average? Um, not, not quite to that level. I don't, like, I think there's,
00:06:43 ◼ ► where the, you know, the number, it's like, I don't know if there's a difference between being
00:06:50 ◼ ► four, four and a half or five. Like if you're on the high end, like the difference between those,
00:06:56 ◼ ► I haven't been quite been able to narrow it down, but I think there's definitely an impact. Like
00:06:59 ◼ ► if you have a really bad, really low rating is really bad and probably even in some ways worse
00:07:04 ◼ ► than having no rating at all. Because like the people, it's like the active statement of like,
00:07:14 ◼ ► but there is definitely something funny there too. I think it's also interesting that in the
00:07:20 ◼ ► App Store, they show the number of reviews that have been left, like in little parentheses after
00:07:25 ◼ ► the star rating. And I feel like that number is also probably somewhat indicative as well. Because
00:07:30 ◼ ► like if the, you know, it's like five stars for views or whatever, you know, a very small number,
00:07:35 ◼ ► it probably carries a lot less weight than if you have, you know, 1,600 reviews and the average
00:07:42 ◼ ► rating is five stars. Like that also has more weight to it. Probably that, but yeah, it's a
00:07:48 ◼ ► really awkward thing to try and like actually isolate and work out the impact because it's such
00:07:53 ◼ ► a fluid thing. And it's something that, you know, as a developer, we don't have any direct control
00:07:58 ◼ ► over. And so it's like, you can like run an experiment of like, let me try running the App
00:08:02 ◼ ► Store if I have a five star review. Let me see if I have a four star review. So it's always just kind
00:08:06 ◼ ► of more anecdotal and kind of just gut feeling about how it works. Yeah, I mean, you know, as
00:08:13 ◼ ► somebody like, I buy things on Amazon all the time, I occasionally will look for new apps on
00:08:18 ◼ ► either iOS or even the Mac App Store. And as a buyer, like when I'm looking at reviews, I hardly
00:08:24 ◼ ► ever read any actual posted review text. But I almost always will look at the average star rating
00:08:32 ◼ ► and the approximate number of ratings. And that's one thing like when I'm buying something on Amazon,
00:08:36 ◼ ► you know, if I'm buying like something where there's a lot of fairly commoditized similar
00:08:41 ◼ ► competition, like a cable, you know, something like that, like if there's one that has 900 reviews
00:08:48 ◼ ► and a four and a half star average, and there's one that has five reviews and a five star average,
00:08:53 ◼ ► you know, that stands out to me. And I will pick the more popular one. I will figure there's
00:08:58 ◼ ► probably some reason why they have so many more that that's probably a good sign. And it's just
00:09:02 ◼ ► a larger sample set. So to achieve a decent average with that big of a sample set is a pretty good
00:09:07 ◼ ► sign compared to something with five reviews, right? And I have to imagine that most people
00:09:11 ◼ ► will do the same thing with App Store reviews. Because it's, you know, whatever we think of our
00:09:17 ◼ ► apps and our position in the market, the way I think the market has shown us over and over again
00:09:23 ◼ ► that it actually works is very much like people buying basic cables on Amazon, where it's like,
00:09:28 ◼ ► they're looking at a list of a thousand apps that all look the same. And they're going to just pick
00:09:33 ◼ ► the one that has like, you know, that shows up near the top, probably the one that's free,
00:09:38 ◼ ► if there is one that's free, which is there almost always is. And they're going to pick the one that
00:09:41 ◼ ► has a decent looking, you know, name and icon and screenshot maybe, and they're going to end with
00:09:47 ◼ ► decent ratings. So in the aggregate, I do think these are very important to to kind of just keep
00:09:54 ◼ ► your average up, and to try to get a good number of reviews. That being said, I think the specifics
00:10:01 ◼ ► of like, if you have an app that has mostly good reviews, and there's one angry person who leaves
00:10:05 ◼ ► the one star and trashes you in the review, even with stuff that isn't even true, I mean, look,
00:10:17 ◼ ► my attitude inspires extreme feelings in some people. And I get a lot of those extremes, and
00:10:26 ◼ ► some of that is great, most of it is great, you know, most of my reviews tend to be pretty
00:10:30 ◼ ► positive. But there's always with anything I do, I could write a blog post saying the sky is blue,
00:10:36 ◼ ► and there'll be one person raging against it on Twitter. You know, it's like, anything I do,
00:10:41 ◼ ► because of my attitude and style, it will anger a certain number of people, right? And so
00:10:47 ◼ ► everything I do always has a small percentage of really negative response or reviews on it.
00:10:54 ◼ ► So you know, even the best versions of Overcast, the best version of Instapaper, like even like
00:10:59 ◼ ► the most uncontroversial updates, there's always a one star review or two or three or four, you know,
00:11:04 ◼ ► they're always there. And some of them get really rude, and some of them are really personal,
00:11:08 ◼ ► but whatever, it doesn't really. So basically, I've stopped reading them, like, because it's just,
00:11:14 ◼ ► I found it mostly unhelpful to read the reviews. I find it much more helpful to pay attention to
00:11:22 ◼ ► what people are saying via email and Twitter. And even though I don't usually even respond to those,
00:11:30 ◼ ► but usually I'm able to keep up with reading them. And you know, the more engaged somebody is with
00:11:38 ◼ ► trying to contact you and trying to use your app, I think the more useful their feedback tends to be.
00:11:45 ◼ ► And so App Store reviews are kind of the bottom of the barrel. Like, somebody can look at your app
00:11:51 ◼ ► for three seconds and leave a review, and they don't even, like, they didn't get to your contact
00:11:55 ◼ ► link. They didn't find your Twitter username. It's like, there's a lower barrier to entry there.
00:12:00 ◼ ► And to some degree, that means you're going to get more feedback that way, which is often a good
00:12:04 ◼ ► thing, but it also means that the level of engagement of these users, the level of effort
00:12:08 ◼ ► of these users is pretty low on average. And so you're going to get more of the crap that you
00:12:15 ◼ ► should mentally filter out coming in through that channel than through other channels. And so the
00:12:21 ◼ ► way I look at individual reviews, the ones that are one star and angry and everything, is if I see
00:12:27 ◼ ► one, which again, I've been seeing fewer and fewer because I stopped reading the reviews for the most
00:12:32 ◼ ► part, but if I see one making a reasonable point, I will take mental note. Like, okay, this person
00:12:39 ◼ ► really, really hates my decision to remove this feature six months ago or whatever. Okay, that's
00:12:47 ◼ ► kind of like an upvote in my head of like, maybe I should reconsider that or whatever else, or maybe
00:12:52 ◼ ► people want a way to address this problem that I removed forever ago. But for the most part,
00:12:58 ◼ ► I don't think you have to worry that much about any individual review, both score wise or its
00:13:04 ◼ ► content, because what matters way more to the people who are actually browsing for your app
00:13:19 ◼ ► Now, this obviously is a bigger problem if you don't have very many reviews. And so we'll get
00:13:25 ◼ ► into this, but like, you know, all the the problem of like the occasional one star angry people is
00:13:31 ◼ ► magnified the fewer reviews you have, because, you know, there's fewer reviews to kind of bury it or
00:13:35 ◼ ► average it out or whatever else. And so I've been lucky that Overcast has almost always had a very
00:13:42 ◼ ► large number of reviews. And I think we'll talk after the after the sponsor break about kind of
00:13:46 ◼ ► how and why and when and when not to ask for reviews. Because I think I think that does have
00:13:53 ◼ ► an impact. But first, let's talk about our sponsor this week. It is a new sponsor it is Hired. You can
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00:15:08 ◼ ► Yeah, because I think what the thing that's so tricky with all these things with reviews is this
00:15:12 ◼ ► finding this balance between like, it's a really it's an odd part of the development process,
00:15:20 ◼ ► because we don't have any direct control over it. But it has a direct impact on us. And there are
00:15:30 ◼ ► about being a developer is that, like, I'm telling my app what to do, like, it's a little bit control
00:15:35 ◼ ► freaky. Like I enjoy that I can control all the behaviors, all the aesthetics, everything in my
00:15:41 ◼ ► app I can control, because it exists, you know, as a result of like sitting down in Xcode and making
00:15:46 ◼ ► it. But the reviews are completely out of my control. Like I have no direct way of doing that.
00:15:51 ◼ ► Instead, and I think like we were just saying, it's, it's like, any individual reviews, probably
00:15:56 ◼ ► not all that important. What's more important, though, is that we are able to encourage our
00:16:02 ◼ ► customers to go there and a high enough volume of customers to go there, such that you have a
00:16:09 ◼ ► representative sample. And obviously, I prefer to be representative of customers who love my app and
00:16:15 ◼ ► want to give it five stars and talk about it lovely. But at the very least, I want that number
00:16:20 ◼ ► to be significant so that it isn't just drowned out by the one person who's angry or even just
00:16:26 ◼ ► giving that bad impression of like, why does this app only have seven reviews? Like, you kind of,
00:16:31 ◼ ► at least in my mind, I sort of like, I don't know what exactly what the multiplier is. But I'm like,
00:16:36 ◼ ► if the app, you know, it's like, there's a certain like the audience in the customer base of this app
00:16:40 ◼ ► is probably some multiplier of that. And so if it's only like seven, maybe the app is kind of,
00:16:46 ◼ ► is only used by a handful of people and isn't that good. And so there's this strange tension, though.
00:16:50 ◼ ► And there was this, it's probably three or four years now, but there was a big hoo-ha a couple
00:17:08 ◼ ► you know, review my app." And there was an app, there was a library called AppRater that was used
00:17:15 ◼ ► in just hundreds and hundreds of apps and got, you know, had this very aggressive version of that.
00:17:22 ◼ ► And I think it's something that I try and always avoid in my apps. Like, I've never really
00:17:27 ◼ ► felt great about doing this because the reality is like, the reviews are primarily beneficial to me.
00:17:34 ◼ ► And they're beneficial to future potential customers. The actual current customer who's
00:17:46 ◼ ► the vague sense that it makes my, it helps me, which helps them because it helps me to be wanting
00:17:52 ◼ ► to make the app better for them. But it's mostly just they're doing me a favor. And so I need to
00:17:59 ◼ ► look at it from that perspective. And I think in a lot of my apps, I've avoided putting in things to
00:18:04 ◼ ► kind of ask for them for that because it is asking them a favor. It's like, you don't want to, you
00:18:10 ◼ ► want to be really thoughtful of anytime you ask your audience for something. But then I also look
00:18:15 ◼ ► in the App Store. And like, so the reason this is top of mind for me is I just went through and added
00:18:20 ◼ ► a little section in the settings area of Podometer++ where it says, you know, would you
00:18:25 ◼ ► like to please leave a review? And leaving a review really helps. Thank you, essentially,
00:18:29 ◼ ► like I have a little button to go to the App Store to leave a review. And I hadn't had one in there
00:18:35 ◼ ► for a long time. The app usually was reviewed fairly well, but I was starting to look at,
00:18:39 ◼ ► look at it from the perspective of a new customer. And I went into the App Store and I started,
00:18:42 ◼ ► you know, searching for the terms that you would search for if you were going to try and find that
00:18:47 ◼ ► app. And what I was noticing is that I had massively disproportionately lower number of
00:18:53 ◼ ► reviews than my customers. And based on like where we rank together, our downloads are fairly similar,
00:18:59 ◼ ► which makes me think that a lot of it is coming just from the fact that I'm pretty sure a lot of
00:19:03 ◼ ► those competing apps have the like, in your face pop up, "Hey, go download the app," and enough
00:19:09 ◼ ► people go do that, that their numbers look good. But from a fresh customer's perspective, that means
00:19:14 ◼ ► that my app looks like nobody uses it or the, you know, very few or disproportionately fewer that,
00:19:19 ◼ ► you know, our star, the actual average star rating is very similar, but I have a 10th of the number
00:19:26 ◼ ► of users or reviews left. And so it's like, now I've added this. I don't feel great about it,
00:19:31 ◼ ► but I think putting it in, you know, it's in the bottom of the settings area. It's the kind of
00:19:35 ◼ ► thing that you'd probably only find if you are, you know, you've used the app a little bit. And
00:19:43 ◼ ► it's also, you know, it's never in, it's never going to be in the course of the core functionality
00:19:48 ◼ ► of the app. So in this case, like showing you your steps, it's not like you open it up to see
00:19:51 ◼ ► your steps and your steps are hidden away behind something asking you to go and do it. But I think
00:19:56 ◼ ► the reality is not having one of those was kind of a disadvantage, it was putting my, putting myself
00:20:04 ◼ ► at a disadvantage that it probably didn't need to be. Yeah. I mean, I kind of came around to that as
00:20:10 ◼ ► well. And I came up with a similar solution for Overcast and Overcast 1.0 was released in, what
00:20:17 ◼ ► was 2014? It was kind of right in the middle of a lot of this debate about the irate dialogue box.
00:20:24 ◼ ► And I mean, these rate my app boxes are now so ubiquitous, like, you know, big apps like
00:20:30 ◼ ► Instagram does it, it bothered me all the time. My bank, Chase, the Chase bank app does it. I'm
00:20:35 ◼ ► like, really? Like, I'm trying to deposit a check. And like, this is like business stuff and you're
00:20:39 ◼ ► interrupting my business stuff with my business bank for your stupid rate my app dialogue for a
00:20:44 ◼ ► bank app like that. But yes, they're so ubiquitous. And I think, you know, what you said is perfect
00:20:51 ◼ ► about like, you know, you're asking, the app is interrupting good usage of your app to do
00:20:57 ◼ ► themselves an advertising favor. And that's, that's kind of rubbed me the wrong way as a customer and
00:21:02 ◼ ► a user of these apps. And so, in my apps, I've always kind of been, you know, not only refusing
00:21:10 ◼ ► to do that kind of interruption, but for a while I like with Instapaper and the magazine, I never
00:21:15 ◼ ► had a link even in settings or anything to rate because I just thought like, kind of like the pure
00:21:20 ◼ ► angle kind of like back before I would do colon keywords after a title of an app. You know, I used
00:21:25 ◼ ► to think, well, this is, I want to do things like the pure proper way and this is just how things
00:21:29 ◼ ► should work. And sometimes how things should work isn't how things do work. And so, you have to find
00:21:35 ◼ ► some kind of compromise. And so, you know, with all these little, you know, App Store realities
00:21:40 ◼ ► shortcomings, you know, like the keyword title thing, I found a compromise of with Overcast.
00:21:44 ◼ ► I actually couldn't name it Overcast. There was another app in the store with that exact name. It
00:21:48 ◼ ► was a cloud file related app. So, it wasn't even like the same kind of thing. But I had to call it
00:21:54 ◼ ► Overcast something. So, I called it Overcast colon podcast player, like the most basic, honest,
00:21:59 ◼ ► short keyword thing I could really come up with. And so, with the user ratings thing, I had a
00:22:07 ◼ ► similar kind of compromise where with Overcast 1.0, it was clear that this kind of thing was
00:22:14 ◼ ► important. So, I wanted to address it somehow. And so, I just put in the settings area,
00:22:19 ◼ ► in the settings screen. It's still there now. It's been unchanged since version 1.0. I have on the
00:22:26 ◼ ► server side, when Overcast syncs, the part of the sync response is the cached ratings count from
00:22:36 ◼ ► iTunes, because you can get it through the iTunes API, the iTunes search API. So, you can get your
00:22:42 ◼ ► own ratings count from your server or directly from your app that way. So, the app keeps a record
00:22:47 ◼ ► of the ratings count for the current version. And so, in the settings screen, again, it's been
00:22:52 ◼ ► there since 1.0. I have a simple item right next to the feedback item that says, "Please rate
00:22:57 ◼ ► Overcast." And below it, it says, "2014 people have rated this version." And if that number is
00:23:04 ◼ ► less than, I think, 50, it says, "Only X people have rated this version." And right below that,
00:23:11 ◼ ► it says, "Overcast will never interrupt you for ratings." And I think enough people... This has
00:23:17 ◼ ► worked remarkably. So, my thinking here is, it's a simple, polite, relatively compact thing that
00:23:25 ◼ ► encourages people who like the app to go support it in this way, but is not pushy about it,
00:23:31 ◼ ► and clarifies right there that they will never be interrupted. So, this is telling them that... You
00:23:36 ◼ ► know, I thought about this very carefully. This is telling them that I respect them. It's telling
00:23:41 ◼ ► them right there I will never interrupt them for ratings. So, it's telling them I respect them. I
00:23:45 ◼ ► won't do this thing that everyone does that you hate. And also, please rate it. And if the number
00:23:52 ◼ ► seems low, especially when it's low enough to be prefixed with only, that's kind of an additional
00:23:56 ◼ ► push like, "Here's how much I can actually use your support right now." And I've never had to
00:24:01 ◼ ► call attention to it on Twitter or anything else. I've never called attention to it in the app. It's
00:24:07 ◼ ► just there in settings. And it has always gotten enough reviews with remarkable speed. And part of
00:24:13 ◼ ► that's... I've been fortunate with Overcast, the user base is pretty sizable now. But even back in
00:24:17 ◼ ► the early days, it was always that way. That kind of approach, when you just respect people and you
00:24:23 ◼ ► let people who like the app support it in this way, in a reasonable way, and without getting in
00:24:29 ◼ ► their face and annoying them, that's great. Now, that being said, that's not going to apply to
00:24:33 ◼ ► every app. And that's unfortunate. One of the defenses back in the day when these boxes were
00:24:39 ◼ ► being debated was, "Well, they work. And we need them." And so, I think what you have to just keep
00:24:46 ◼ ► in mind is that that's not the only approach that can work. And while you do probably need some kind
00:24:52 ◼ ► of easy way for people to rate your app, doing it in a more respectful way, like what we are doing
00:24:58 ◼ ► in our apps, not to toot our own horns too much, but doing this in a way that doesn't interrupt your
00:25:03 ◼ ► user and annoy them is, I think, a far superior way to do it. Because it works well enough,
00:25:09 ◼ ► so you don't need to be more pushy about it. Obviously, these kind of ways do work well enough.
00:25:14 ◼ ► And it doesn't compromise the user experience. And it doesn't annoy your legitimate good customers.
00:25:24 ◼ ► these kinds of things, I always do also take the other... I always try and take the other perspective
00:25:28 ◼ ► too of the... I find a ratings dialogue very offensive, or at least very annoying. But I
00:25:36 ◼ ► sometimes do wonder if my... how many of my customers actually have that same experience
00:25:42 ◼ ► and same perspective. And it reminds me in many ways of the same way that, like, I don't like
00:25:46 ◼ ► using apps that have banner ads in them, but I make apps that have banner ads in them that
00:26:00 ◼ ► you know, undesirable, are certainly different, I think, than what I have, which is fine. But it's
00:26:10 ◼ ► also something that I always try and keep in the back of my mind as I'm working on through these
00:26:13 ◼ ► kinds of things, is that while I may think that these things are really annoying, maybe some
00:26:19 ◼ ► people don't think they're annoying. Maybe some people think that they're actually useful. They're
00:26:22 ◼ ► like, "Oh, yeah, I'd love to support this app. I didn't know I could do that." Or, "This is
00:26:27 ◼ ► something that I enjoy doing." And they like being prompted to do it and the feeling of empowerment
00:26:31 ◼ ► of that or whatever. But what I think when I was trying to wrestle with this a little bit is I
00:26:36 ◼ ► think the approach that it probably makes sense for most developers is to keep an open mind in
00:26:42 ◼ ► terms of, like what I was just saying with myself, of like, while I may find these annoying, my
00:26:46 ◼ ► customers may not, but not to take that to mean as like a blank check to like, and just like, do
00:26:52 ◼ ► whatever I want, because someone might like it. But to view it from the perspective of like, this
00:26:57 ◼ ► is important. This is something that I think I've been negligent in for a lot of my apps of, you
00:27:03 ◼ ► know, making sure that I'm giving them every opportunity to succeed. And having a good, rich
00:27:09 ◼ ► set of reviews in the App Store is probably an important part of that. But the way to approach it
00:27:14 ◼ ► is to not just like jump all the way to 11 and be like, "Yeah, like just throw the dialog boxes up
00:27:22 ◼ ► every time they launch the app." Like, no, that's probably not right. But instead, when this is the
00:27:27 ◼ ► approach that I'm kind of planning to take with my apps going forward is it's like, I'm gonna,
00:27:31 ◼ ► I'm gonna do this incrementally. Like I used to have no dialog boxes at all. I would just have the,
00:27:36 ◼ ► like a sentence or two in my release notes was the place that I typically did it where like,
00:27:41 ◼ ► in my change log at the bottom, I'd be like, "Hey, if you have a minute, write a review,
00:27:44 ◼ ► that'd be great." Not only does nobody read those, but people who do see them, they're never going to
00:27:48 ◼ ► the bottom. Yeah. So like, that was, you know, by far the least, the least obtrusive version
00:27:54 ◼ ► that hasn't been working perfectly. So amazing, I'm going to put it in the settings area, right?
00:28:00 ◼ ► I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to put it there, and I'm going to engage the response.
00:28:03 ◼ ► Then I'll see how that goes. And I'm going to if that's not enough, if that's still not quite
00:28:09 ◼ ► getting the outcome that I'd like, it's like, maybe I'll put it in a different part of the
00:28:12 ◼ ► settings area right now. It's in the bottom, maybe I'll move it up to the top. And if that
00:28:15 ◼ ► doesn't work, maybe I'll periodically show it on the main screen, but not in a modal way. Like,
00:28:24 ◼ ► being respectful always, and not wanting to do things that are, you know, like, super user
00:28:30 ◼ ► hostile, but like keeping an open mind and doing this incrementally and seeing like, where is that
00:28:34 ◼ ► point? Because my suspicion is, and I think your experience certainly is a good example of this,
00:28:38 ◼ ► is like, you can find a place where you're kind of hitting that balance between getting the outcome
00:28:44 ◼ ► that you need, because you don't, there's not that probably much of a difference between having,
00:28:48 ◼ ► you know, 1000 and 2000 user reviews in the App Store, for example, like, my guess is, once you
00:28:53 ◼ ► hit four to four digits, like people are thinking you get a sense of like, wow, that's a lot of
00:28:57 ◼ ► reviews. And so you just got to get whatever have a mechanism such that you can hit that number
00:29:02 ◼ ► consistently. And once you can do that, I think you're probably going to be fine. And so I'm just
00:29:06 ◼ ► going to start as basic as I can. And I'm just going to keep dialing it up slowly until I hit