My advice to users? Consider all App Store ratings compromised. “This puts into question the integrity of the entire App Store. Which brings us to Eleftheriou’s wider point:
In legal documents released as part of the ongoing Epic Vs Apple trial, Eric Friedman, head of the company’s Fraud Engineering Algorithms and Risk (‘FEAR’ unit) compared App Store security to “bringing a plastic butter knife to a gunfight” saying the App Store review process is “more like the pretty lady who greets you… at the Hawaiian airport than the drug-sniffing dog” Such is life.Commenting on the problem, former Apple marketing director Michael Gartenberg exclaimed “How did this one slip through?” But last month court documents made it clear. Is this an Apple bug? I asked for follow up and received nothing, as expected. I did get a 1-star in January actually praising the app itself, but complaing about being asked to give a rating or else the app store wouldn't launch. My last hateful 1-star review was in December. Now I have 174 ratings with an average of 4.4/5.0 On the surface, a bunch of 1-star, hateful reviews and then a few 5-star reviews is suspicious.ġ) I carefully added to popup a request for review for customers who have already made in-app purchases (meaning they liked it well enough to vote with their wallet) and, based on the logic being executed, seem to be getting good value from the app.Ģ) I also added a fallback for older system that son't support SKStoreReviewController There may be some kind of AI-based filtering going on. I had a few real 5-star reviews that are more typical of the direct feedback that I get. I responded to each one, trying to diplomatically point out what was false and turn it into an ad for my product. When I first released my app, I had a number of crazy, one-star reviews.
#Weathersnoop pulled from apple app store update
I can provide an update on my review situation. Then they aren't real reviews, then are they? Just keep in mind that your account may have been flagged for abuse, so. If you can't get reviews any other way, you may want to check your expectations and work harder on your app's content, etc. You'll appreciate the process when those appear. If the removed reviews were valid, the app will eventually attract other genuine positive reviews without you having to lobby on it's behalf, so just relax and be patient. Your admission that you know the users involved personally just works to confirm Apple's reaction. That said, something about those reviews triggered a closer look on the backend. Just because they weren't bought using money, doesn't mean they were earned by app store standards, a process you seem to be openly mocking, and one Apple seems keen to enforce. Not by 'friends and supporters', but by unbiased users/strangers without connection to the author.
Reviews are assumed to be unbiased and provided voluntarily by the public at large, without dev solicitation, prodding, encouragement, wink/wink/nod, etc.
I use LaunchKit's Review Monitor so I have a record of all reviews that are left. I believe that the problem will only be addressed if enough developers complain about it, so I urge everyone to watch their reviews very carefully. This is a serious problem because Apple appear to use the number of reviews as one of the factors in determining ranking. I have asked family and friends to watch out for this, and they also have disappearing reviews. And as well as this, if I leave revews for other, unrelated, apps they usually disappear too, so I know that it is not just my apps that are affected. I was given a case number but was never contacted. It has continued and I tried reporting it again. I have spoken extensively to Apple support and did get as far as speaking to someone in California but at the end of the whole process she simply said that she had no idea why it was happening and to just see if it continued. We have had the problem of disappearing reviews for well over a year with our apps.
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