0:00:00Welcome to Developing Perspective. Developing Perspective is a podcast discussing news of
0:00:04note, iOS development, Apple, and the like. I'm your host, David Smith. I'm an independent
0:00:08iOS and Mac developer based in Virginia. This is show number 180. Today is Friday, April
0:00:1311th. Developing Perspective is never longer than 15 minutes, so let's get started.
0:00:17All right. So first off, I'm probably worth mentioning how I fared in the WWDC lottery.
0:00:23Unfortunately, it did not go great for me. I was not selected, which makes me a little
0:00:27bit sad. It makes me a little bit, you know, a little bit down. I think this would have
0:00:32been my sixth in a row, something like that. I really enjoyed every time I've been out.
0:00:36I'll still be out in San Francisco this year. And I guess I'm still hopeful that there's
0:00:40a small chance that there'll be a second round on Monday after the initial round of people
0:00:45get the opportunity to finalize their ticket. You know, some percentage of those people
0:00:48probably won't. And so there might be a second round. And if that's the case, you know, fingers
0:00:53cross, maybe it'll work out for me then, or who knows, either way I'll be out in San Francisco,
0:01:00you know, ticket ticket or otherwise.
0:01:02So moving on into probably a more positive topic, or at least a more constructive one
0:01:07other than me just moping about not getting a ticket, I'm going to wrap up my series on
0:01:13thoughts for improving the App Store.
0:01:15And this is I think part five of the series.
0:01:17And I'll probably be doing kind of a big combination post shortly once I get some feedback back
0:01:23on this last issue.
0:01:24My goal for this series-- and I've
0:01:26gotten a lot of good feedback that
0:01:27tends to sort of jive with this-- is my goal
0:01:29is to try and have thoughtful, constructive, actionable things
0:01:33that could be done to the App Store to make it better.
0:01:36Better for customers, better for developers, just better
0:01:38in general.
0:01:39And by and large, I think a lot of the things
0:01:41that I've hit on-- I mean, most of them are fairly obvious.
0:01:43It's not like I'm coming up with these incredibly
0:01:45novel and genius things.
0:01:47A lot of it's just sort of these obvious things that areas
0:01:50where the store just hasn't scaled gracefully, hasn't gone from something that was relatively
0:01:57small five, six years ago to something that it is today where it's millions of applications.
0:02:02And these are some of these areas where I think it could really be improved.
0:02:05And today I'm going to be closing that series out by talking about ratings, by talking about
0:02:10the editorial coverage that we get in the app, and about categories.
0:02:13All right, so let's get going.
0:02:15Let's dive into this and start off with talking about ratings.
0:02:18So ratings I'm talking about are obviously
0:02:20mostly the star ratings that we see in an application.
0:02:22And to some degree, the customer reviews--
0:02:25though honestly, I don't find those quite as important
0:02:27or relevant in my own experience.
0:02:28They're useful for me sometimes to read and get
0:02:30kind of general ideas about my application.
0:02:32But the thing that really is important,
0:02:34probably more than in some ways, probably
0:02:36is the most important aspect of your application sales
0:02:38experience that's outside of your direct control
0:02:40as a developer, is how many stars you have in the App Store.
0:02:44It's shown everywhere in the App Store.
0:02:46Everywhere you go, you're looking at an application.
0:02:48It's going to have the number of stars next to it.
0:02:50And it's just pervasive.
0:02:52And I think as a result of it being so pervasive,
0:02:54I think customers probably put a lot of value on that.
0:02:58And fair enough, because it is one
0:02:59of the few things that isn't controlled
0:03:01by Apple or the developer.
0:03:03It's controlled by customers.
0:03:04It's a reasonable expectation that that's
0:03:06an accurate representation of the quality of the application.
0:03:09And that's great insofar as it's potentially
0:03:13communicating useful information to our customers.
0:03:15But where things, of course, get problematic
0:03:17is how we as developers seek to take control of that experience.
0:03:21Because it's the only thing that we don't have direct control
0:03:24over, we seem to dive into that and try and find
0:03:26ways to improve our star ranking in the hopes of improving
0:03:29our sales.
0:03:30And some of these can get potentially dubious and tricky.
0:03:32And I'm not to bring up the whole sort of tempest
0:03:35we had a couple of months ago about ratings prompt dialogues.
0:03:38But there's a lot of things that really aren't great
0:03:40for customer experiences, really can get kind of dubious
0:03:44in terms of the experience and the psychology
0:03:46that we're applying to our customers.
0:03:48On the flip side, there are also some really solid, positive,
0:03:51thoughtful things that you can do to accomplish the same goal.
0:03:53I'll link in the show notes to an article by Dan Council, who
0:03:56is talking about some really thoughtful ways of prompting
0:03:59for app reviews.
0:04:00And I think there is a place for that.
0:04:02There is a way for us as developers
0:04:04to seek to improve the ratings of our apps.
0:04:06But the situation as it is right now isn't great.
0:04:09And I think there's two things that Apple
0:04:11could do to really kind of improve the situation.
0:04:13And then the first one is perhaps most straightforward.
0:04:16I really think Apple needs to provide a clear policy
0:04:18about where, how, and when applications
0:04:20can prompt users for reviews.
0:04:22It seems like the kind of thing that should be part of the app
0:04:24review guidelines.
0:04:25I think right now there's just a general statement about you
0:04:28can't game them or you can't exploit them
0:04:31in ways that aren't right.
0:04:34But it's a very vague general statement.
0:04:35I think it would make sense for there
0:04:37to be a specific guideline.
0:04:39And in many ways, I don't care so much
0:04:40about exactly what that guideline is.
0:04:42I think generally I'd like to have it be more customer
0:04:45centric rather than developer centric.
0:04:46But generally what I would like is
0:04:48for it to be a very clear policy.
0:04:50An app will be rejected from the store
0:04:53if it is found to ask for reviews in a way that
0:04:56is inconsistent with this policy.
0:04:59And I think this is important, mostly because what it does
0:05:02is it puts all developers on an even footing in this regard.
0:05:06Your star rating is very important for how users
0:05:09potentially would compare your apps between their peers.
0:05:12If I'm looking at three or four apps, and one of them's five stars and one of them's
0:05:15four stars, if they look very similar, I might go with a five star app.
0:05:19And the reason that they may have gotten those five stars is because they're doing lots of
0:05:22kind of tricky things to drum up their reviews.
0:05:26And that's not a great thing.
0:05:28You're not reinforcing or rewarding, I think, the right behavior there.
0:05:32What I'd really prefer to see is where all apps are on the same playing field.
0:05:37They have to abide by the same rules.
0:05:38They can only prompt users for reviews
0:05:41and go after them in the same way.
0:05:44And then whatever those rules are, at least it's fair.
0:05:48You don't have this situation where-- I remember
0:05:50I heard from so many developers when we were having
0:05:52the prompt dialogue discussion.
0:05:54They were saying, I really hate doing this,
0:05:56but everyone's doing it.
0:05:58And so if everyone's doing it, then I need to too.
0:06:00It's kind of this collective lack of personal responsibility
0:06:04in that way.
0:06:04It's like, well, if Johnny down the street's doing it,
0:06:07then I can do it too because he's doing it.
0:06:10That's not a great place for us to find ourselves
0:06:12as a community and as a store.
0:06:14If I prefer for there to be a clear policy,
0:06:16this is what we should do.
0:06:17You may link to the app store for the purpose
0:06:19of collecting reviews only from static screens that
0:06:22aren't modal.
0:06:23And you may only present this to you-- this must always
0:06:26be as a result of a user action not something you're doing,
0:06:29for example.
0:06:29You can imagine those are clumsy words,
0:06:31but I'm sure you could refine it down
0:06:33into something where you're saying
0:06:34it is possible to ask your user if they'd like a review.
0:06:37Maybe you aren't allowed to do it in a modal way.
0:06:39Maybe it has to be as a part of another screen.
0:06:41Or who knows?
0:06:42There's lots of things that you can apply there and just
0:06:44make sure everyone's on the same level.
0:06:46Secondly, I really kind of wish that the rating scale
0:06:49wasn't just tied to the most recent version
0:06:51of your application.
0:06:53And I know this was added probably a couple years ago now
0:06:56where in the old system, it was just your overall average.
0:06:59And that could create these really awkward things where
0:07:00you have one particular version that
0:07:02has a really bad crashing bug or something that
0:07:05got through your quality assurance.
0:07:06It gets out into the store, gets tons of one star reviews,
0:07:09and your ratings are always held down as a result.
0:07:11Like that was always kind of awkward.
0:07:13You wanted it to kind of reset.
0:07:14You wanted it to kind of clear itself out over time.
0:07:17The problem with the current system
0:07:18of only being based on the current app
0:07:22is that every time you do an update,
0:07:24it makes your reviews look terrible.
0:07:26Because suddenly, rather than being
0:07:29based on a large subset of your users,
0:07:32they're only based on a very small set.
0:07:33Or even worse, when the update first comes out,
0:07:37before it gets a certain number of reviews,
0:07:39your app shows up as zero stars, essentially.
0:07:41It has a blank rating.
0:07:43And that's even worse.
0:07:44I'd prefer to have it be some kind of a weighted average
0:07:47of your last few versions.
0:07:48I think that would give a good representation
0:07:51to your customers of what it is.
0:07:53And it can move over time.
0:07:54It's like it could just be, rather than based on versions,
0:07:57it's based on time.
0:07:59So for example, it's based on the last 30 days
0:08:02worth of reviews.
0:08:03And so if you have a bad crashing bug
0:08:05and it has all these problems, fair enough.
0:08:07Your ratings are going to take a bit of a dive
0:08:12for that little period.
0:08:13But over time, they'll work their way back up
0:08:16if you've improved the app, if you're getting better.
0:08:18I think that would be much more representative to our customers.
0:08:20And I think that would be better optimized for the right things
0:08:23for doing as a developer.
0:08:24Because the thing that I don't like
0:08:25is that it discourages me to do updates.
0:08:28And it encourages me to annoy my users with review prompts.
0:08:31because every time I do an update, my reviews reset.
0:08:35And so I have to work on getting them back up.
0:08:37And unfortunately, one of the ways
0:08:38that I can get them back up is by spaying my user with prompts
0:08:42to do that.
0:08:42And neither of those are encouraging the right behavior.
0:08:44So I think we could do better.
0:08:46All right, next, I was going to talk
0:08:47a little bit about the editorial parts of the App Store.
0:08:49And when I say editorial, I'm talking about really
0:08:52the feature pages.
0:08:53I'm being a bit highfalutin and calling it editorial.
0:08:55But it's the parts of the App Store
0:08:57that aren't algorithmically generated.
0:08:59the parts of the store that are curated by people at Apple who
0:09:04are looking at applications and saying, this is a great app.
0:09:06This is a great app.
0:09:07I want this to be front and center.
0:09:09And it's a very important part of your--
0:09:11I think as a developer, it's a very important part
0:09:13of the store.
0:09:14It isn't as important as I think it used to be.
0:09:16There used to be, if you got featured, it was a huge deal.
0:09:19You got 100 times the downloads that you would otherwise.
0:09:22It doesn't seem to have been quite the same thing
0:09:24in recent years for me.
0:09:26Generally speaking, featured is still being awesome.
0:09:29And the best part of being featured
0:09:31is that it incentivizes quality, thoughtful, and relevant app
0:09:35creation.
0:09:35It incentivizes the things that I
0:09:37think Apple would want developers to be focused on.
0:09:40Because you're not rewarding somebody
0:09:42for being able to zoom up the charts.
0:09:45You're rewarding quality in its truest sense.
0:09:48And so I like that.
0:09:49I like that there's editorial coverage.
0:09:51I like that it is part of the store, and it's very prominent,
0:09:54and it's the first page you go to when you first
0:09:56launch the app store.
0:09:57So awesome.
0:09:58But I think it could do better.
0:10:00And the first thing I think it could do better in
0:10:02is I really think they need to expand
0:10:04the scope and the frequency of editorial coverage
0:10:07in the store.
0:10:08It seems very odd that features are only updated once a week.
0:10:12They're usually updated Thursday afternoons.
0:10:14And it seems strange when apps are being constantly updated,
0:10:17apps are constantly being released.
0:10:19There's this stagnation that I think
0:10:21that comes along with that, where
0:10:23they're only refreshing that list once a week.
0:10:26customers are really only going to look at it once a week.
0:10:28And that kind of disincentivizes an engagement
0:10:30into the app store.
0:10:31Whereas if there's a constantly kind of rotating, like, hey,
0:10:34what's new, what's new, what's new,
0:10:36you can create that type of a behavior in somebody
0:10:39where maybe once a day they're going and looking
0:10:41for apps, which me as an app developer would love.
0:10:44And I think the Apple itself would do well there,
0:10:48because in the current system, that page is really
0:10:51only useful to a user once a week.
0:10:54And that seems strange.
0:10:56And also, it seems like the scope of that
0:10:58could be expanded.
0:10:59I would love to see more done there,
0:11:01beyond just one little tab in the App Store.
0:11:03You could imagine all kinds of things.
0:11:05You could have, you know, [INAUDIBLE]
0:11:06picks and hire little columnists, essentially,
0:11:10to be writing things about applications,
0:11:12have mini reviews inside the App Store.
0:11:14There's a lot of things you could imagine that would really,
0:11:18I think, round that experience out.
0:11:19And we give it a lot more character and a lot more
0:11:22authority to customers.
0:11:23And so I really wish they'd updated more frequently
0:11:26and expand that out.
0:11:26And exactly what that looked like
0:11:28would be dependent on what they felt comfortable with.
0:11:30But I really think it could use a lot of work.
0:11:33And secondly, I think it would be great
0:11:35if the App Store made your featured status
0:11:39visible after your initial feature.
0:11:41And so this is something where I don't
0:11:43know exactly the number is.
0:11:44And I'm not sure anyone actually does.
0:11:46Or I'm sure there's some analytics company
0:11:48that could work it out.
0:11:49But the number of apps that have ever
0:11:51featured in the App Store is a fairly small subset
0:11:55of the store at large.
0:11:56Of the million apps in the App Store,
0:11:58there are probably only a few thousand, maybe 10,000.
0:12:01Who knows?
0:12:02Apps that have ever been featured.
0:12:03And it seems like that is an important thing
0:12:06to communicate to customers, that Apple has said,
0:12:10of the million apps in the store, here's a handful.
0:12:12Here's a tiny subset of those that we've looked at
0:12:16and we've said are awesome.
0:12:17Well, you should tell your customers that rather than just
0:12:20that one week, one shot banner in the store,
0:12:24why don't we show that all the time?
0:12:25If you go to the App Store profile page for that app,
0:12:28maybe it should say featured on, or have a little badge that
0:12:32says-- a little thumbs up, like, yeah, Apple
0:12:33thinks this app is cool.
0:12:35Because you've said that.
0:12:36You've said that at some point.
0:12:37You've had someone take the time to look at it.
0:12:39Why not communicate that to your customers?
0:12:42Because I think it would encourage
0:12:45this right kind of behavior, where
0:12:47If you make building a feature-worthy app be worthwhile, differentiated perpetually
0:12:53in the store, or at least for a long period of time, maybe times out after a year or something,
0:12:58but I think you could really help developers who are focused on quality to have more notoriety
0:13:05and to be more noticed in the store.
0:13:07And along those same lines, I think you could do a lot of things in terms of also just showing
0:13:11up your features, the feature works that Apple is doing inside things like search results.
0:13:16I wish when you searched for accounting,
0:13:19it showed you a list of the managing your money featured
0:13:23sets that Apple puts together.
0:13:24They love putting together these collections of apps
0:13:26where they have, here's the best apps for managing your money.
0:13:30Here's the best apps for checking the ski conditions.
0:13:34Here's the best apps for platforming games.
0:13:37So if I'm searching for ski conditions, show me that list.
0:13:39Don't just have it disappear into the ether
0:13:42once you've spent all that time and energy to put it together.
0:13:45show the users on that going forward.
0:13:47I think you could do a lot to just encourage quality app--
0:13:50by emphasizing quality in the way that you do features.
0:13:54And lastly, this is a quick one.
0:13:56I really think that Apple needs to expand
0:13:58the diversity of categories that you can attach to an app.
0:14:01I think it's weird that only games get subcategories.
0:14:04And everyone else, there's 24 categories in the App Store
0:14:07trying to categorize a million things.
0:14:08That just seems like it doesn't scale.
0:14:10And so I wish you could subcategorize
0:14:12into further and further things.
0:14:14And that would, I think, help a lot for a lot of discoverability
0:14:17for more niche apps.
0:14:18If I'm looking for VNC clients, and there's
0:14:20a category of VNC clients, and I'm the number one ranking
0:14:24app in the VNC client, that's suddenly useful in a way
0:14:27that being the number 26 app in productivity or Office
0:14:32or whatever it is, like business tools,
0:14:34that's not as relevant to a user.
0:14:36And so I wish there was more categories
0:14:38that we could apply.
0:14:39And that's kind of it for the series.
0:14:41Hopefully that was useful.
0:14:42Like I said, I'm going to put together a kind of a synthesis post at the end.
0:14:45But I think these are some things that we could as developers encourage Apple to do
0:14:50that would make the store a lot better.
0:14:52Thank you as always if you have questions, comments, concerns, or complaints, I'm on
0:14:54Twitter @_davidsmith, david@developingperspective.com.
0:14:55Otherwise, I hope you have a great week.
0:14:56Happy coding.
0:14:57Bye.
0:14:57Otherwise, I hope you have a great week, happy coding, bye.