Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by egocentric 1960 days ago
OP here. My app's rating is 3.4. I'm not gaming the rating system to my advantage, and I encourage you to check out my app, as well as competing apps with 4.5 or so stars.

Something that will never allow me or any watch keyboard to have stellar ratings is the fact that Apple does not support keyboards system-wide on watchOS, like they do on iOS. Yet my competitors casually had 4.5 stars - and one of them is still up.

As for some of the particular claims, there were a couple of days where the app was paid, and had an IAP - as part of my transition to a free app. Still, the initial paid download let you use the keyboard as long as you want on the watch, but without swipe, themes and other premium features. It was an awkward transition, unfortunately, and those are the battle scars.

Anyway, my point is that my rating truly reflects how people feel about my product - as it should. A 3.4 rating is currently preventing most people from even checking out the app, and I'm fine with that.

1 comments

You have an explanation for these reviews and I believe it, but the developers you're attacking surely have a good explanation for theirs? Is it possible that bad reviews are not always the result of bad intentions?

I support your effort to improve the App Store and get Apple to be more fair. I don't support using public outrage to accuse other developers of purchasing reviews, without proof, in a way that could harm their income. It's immoral and possibly a tort of defamation.

I don't doubt that you have good intentions but going down this path will just lead to developers using public outrage to try to damage each other, not to Apple adjusting their rules and review process. Someone with enough twitter followers could easily do this to someone else.

The rating of my reviews matches the overall rating of my app.

That is not the case - at all - for the app(s) I mention in my Twitter thread.