Today, opinions count a lot for all types of businesses and, of course, applications are also a business for their developers. Word of mouth has always been one of the best ways to spread a good opinion about something, but the App Store has a reviews section enabled so that users can share their experience, positive or negative, with the application in question. Here we tell you everything you need to know about them.
How useful are they?
Later we will see how the reviews are put into an application, but first you should know what they consist of and that is basically they are texts in which anyone who has downloaded the app can comment. In the end, users are the main beneficiaries of the fact that these exist, since at a glance they can see what evaluation other people have made of that tool and, based on this, assess whether or not it is going to be worth downloading it.
For the developer it is also positive, since in this way they can show that their application offers good content that is useful for users and, incidentally, grow in the App Store ranking. Even if the review is negative, you can study it and even contact the user to improve your application and ultimately offer a better service.
Sometimes reviews are not decisive
Beyond someone leaving a false review, the truth is that there are some applications whose reviews can be misleading. This is the case of applications that have just been released on the App Store. Let’s imagine that only one user leaves his score and his comment and these are negative. Another person who comes across that application will be able to see the low score and if you do not pay much attention to the number of votes you may think that it is a bad application. The developer in this case may have corrected the problems shown by the person who left the bad comment, but if no one adds any more reviews, it will still be a poorly rated app.
How to view reviews on the App Store
Whether on an iPhone or an iPad, you can enter any application and find reviews. At first you can see information about the app such as its name, images and / or videos about it, as well as its classification or the always present download button. If you look at the left side, you can see the number of reviews made and the average number of stars that have been awarded.
What do the stars mean? They are a rating of 1 to 5 of the app, with 1 being the lowest and 5 the highest. Users who want to rate the application must necessarily leave a number of stars, although the comment is optional. An average of up to 2.5 stars is low for an application, while 3 or more already indicates that it has a better rating range by users.
If you scroll down you will see the section “Ratings and reviews” and if you click on “See all” you will find each and every one of the ratings. It is also possible to sort them by the following values:
- The most useful
- More favorable
- More reviews
- Most recent
How to write your own review
If you have downloaded an application that you want to rate, either positively or to report a malfunction, you can do so from the same section of the App Store application discussed above.
- Click on “Write Review”.
- Please leave a rating of 1 to 5 stars.
- Choose a title for your review.
- Write your assessment. This is optional, but if you want both the developer and the rest of the users to know your opinion, it will be important that you fill it in.
- Click on send.
Why is the review not appearing?
Reviews do not appear when submitted and not even the star rating is reflected in the average of the application. There is a margin of around 24 hours until it appears. So don’t worry if you don’t see them right away. If after that indicated period of time it still does not appear, it is possible that an error occurred during the process in which you wrote it, be it the internet connection, a collapse in the servers or any other problem that prevented the correct sending of the review .
How to edit a review
You may regret leaving a review, be it for better or for worse. You should know that it is possible to edit it by clicking on “Write review” again, since when this section is opened you will see that it is not blank, but the same score, title and review that you had previously left appears. You can change everything and press “send” again and after the estimated time, your complete edited review will be reflected.
See all your reviews and delete them
If what you want is to completely delete your review because it is not worth it or edit it, you should know that the steps to follow in this case are not carried out in the App Store in this case, but it is extremely simple and it will also help you to see all the reviews you’ve been leaving.
- Open Settings and click on your name.
- Go to Content and purchases.
- Click on “View account”. During this period, it may take a few seconds to load and you may be required to have Face ID / Touch ID or the iPhone or iPad code.
- Select Ratings & Reviews “.
- Go through all the reviews and find the one you want to remove.
- Swipe to the right and click on “Delete”.
Developer can reply
Something that makes reviews even more attractive is that application developers can write a comment below the reviews. Either to thank a positive evaluation or to know more information about your experience with the application if it was negative. They can even contact you if they want more specific information, although it will obviously not be mandatory for you to have to respond.
Are the reviews anonymous?
Yes and no. The first time you leave a review you will be asked to enter a name that can be any nickname that you choose. This name will be visible in the reviews, but other information such as your real name or your Apple ID will be completely anonymous, since it will not appear anywhere.
In-app notices to leave a review
Surely on more than one occasion you have found yourself using an application, especially when you recently downloaded it, and you have observed that a banner appears asking you to rate the app. You can ignore this message, continue browsing and rest assured that that banner will not appear again. However, if you interact with this pop-up message, you can go directly to the application file in the App Store and leave a review. These are a series of prompts set up by the developers in order for you to rate their service.