For a developer, the decision to make an application available for free is a difficult one. Countless hours are spent writing code, creating images, and marketing a newly created application when the last thing you want to think about is what user rating it will receive, but it is a cause for concern.
There are currently 6,957 free applications and 23,194 paid applications at the App Store, but the average rating for free applications is around 2.5 stars while paid is about 3.2 stars. Also, if you look through the top 25 free applications at the App Store you may find only a few applications near or at a four star rating, even if the paid version of the free application has a much higher rating, so what gives?
Why Do Free Applications Score Low?
One thing we all know by now is that customers love free applications. People have downloaded a ridiculously high number of throwaway applications because there is absolutely no risk involved. Even if the application has received poor reviews, who cares? What do you have to lose? So you go and download the top free applications, since they don’t require any extra searching, heed no warnings, and find out that it is as bad as everyone says it is. Maybe that is half of the appeal? Just to download and witness for yourself how bad or worthless an application can be.
That leads me to the next point, when an application is free there is nothing to stop you from deleting it the second you become bored with it. There is no reason to give the application another thought, no reason to go the extra mile to see what really makes an application special. So, delete it, rate it, and on to the next you go.
The rate upon deletion method Apple employs could also be at fault here. It’s hard to believe that many of you would give an application a five-star rating upon deleting it. The reason you are deleting it in the first place is probably because it doesn’t work, or there is something out there that does the job even better.
Lite versions of paid applications are usually rated poorly as well. These ratings and reviews are usually based on what the lite version lacks which is absurd. When downloading a free demo of an applications users must expect that it is going to be stripped down. If people would simply rate and review the lite versions of paid applications for what they are, not for what they aren’t, this wouldn’t even be a problem.
As For Paid Applications…
So now that I have outlined a few reasons why free applications score poorly, why do the top 25 paid applications usually have a much higher rating? Some of the reasons may be more than obvious.
When you purchase an application, you don’t just do it blindly. Research is required, especially if you are a frugal application purchaser. You don’t want to waste your hard earned money on a poorly reviewed application.
Paying for an application makes all the difference when reviewing it. Some people find the need to justify a purchase by rating the application higher than it deserves, finding positives where none may exist. Once you have plopped down that $2.99 for an application that doesn’t do exactly what you want, you may be more reluctant to try out another application that does the exact same thing because you may waste even more money. Because of this, it is unlikely that you will delete the application nearly as quickly as you would a free application, or even at all. If you never delete the application, even if you don’t use it, you probably won’t take the time to write a review or rate the application.
Some of you may also be concerned about losing your already paid for application. When you delete applications from your iPhone, iPod touch, or even computer you can always download them again. When downloading an already paid for the application, a window will pop-up telling you that you have previously paid for the application and you may download it for free. So don’t worry about losing your paid applications, they will always be there.
Possible Solutions
Apple has been working very slowly on improving the user ratings system. They added the ability to review an application only if you have purchased it. They also removed all of the reviews that were placed without purchases. Apple recently added separate ratings and reviews for different application versions to reward developers for fixing whatever issues had plagued previous versions. So, what else can Apple do to avoid these ratings issues?
There are far too many user reviews that give glowing praise to an application and then have a single star rating. If you attempt to submit a review through the iTunes application from your computer without a star rating, it won’t allow it. However, if you attempt the same from your iPhone or iPod touch, there is nothing to stop you.
Apple may also want to reconsider rating applications upon deletion. Free applications seem to suffer quite a bit from this method. If Apple would only allow users to rate applications after signing into their iTunes account, it would weed out the users who randomly hit buttons and stars upon deletion.
These are just a couple simple ideas that may help the future of user reviews at the App Store. If we continue in the direction we are headed, most people won’t even consider taking a second look at user reviews, especially for free applications. We can all do our part as well by honestly reviewing applications, because your voice is the most important.
If all else fails, don’t forget to check our site for great application reviews, because we have a fantastic team of writers. Ok, that’s not a solution, that is what you call a shameless plug.
In all honesty, most of these developers have put a lot time into their applications, whether they are free or available for purchase, so they deserve your best praise and criticism. Rate and review intelligently.
After all, we all know how long it takes Apple to respond to criticism, so we don’t want to leave it all in their hands.
Submit your own App Store Insider ideas to: tyler[at]appleiphoneapps[dot]com
Tyler:
“The reason you are deleting it in the first place is probably because it doesn’t work, or there is something out there that does the job even better.”
Not always. Some of us have “full” springboards where if we want to take a look at another app, we need to delete one. I have found myself deleting quite a few off my springboard so that I could make room for another app I wanted to tryout and/or buy. Typically, I tell the dialog that pops up that I don’t want to rate it. However, sometimes I do rate them. That’s when I delete them for a longer time frame. I never “fully” delete an app I have removed from the springboard. I simply tell iTunes not to sync that app with my device. This way I can put it back on later if I decide I need it or if Apple ever gives us more room in the springboard (heres hoping that the rumor’s are true of more than 9 pages!).
Also, free applications are not necessarily great apps that are free. There are thousands of “free” apps out there that just show a picture and count down to a specific date, or just show a picture for that matter. I tend to give those poor ratings simply because they are not needed apps.
A statistic you should look into as well is the ratings per price of the app. How do apps that are $0.99 rate on average compared to apps that are $4.99 or $9.99? That would be interesting to see. I suspect, the $0.99 apps are going to be rated fairly poorly too. For the same reasons I suggested for the free apps. They are typically fart/barf apps or hundreds of apps that are the same code base, just different data. (Fortunately, Apple is addressing that issue with the 3.0 firmware.)
Also, an issue with those cheaper apps that have tens of copies with just different data. I have found quite a few of these with ratings posters that are clearly from the developers. You will see two or three “glowing” reviews of the app followed by one or two 1 star ratings. Why is this? Well, the app is “crap” and no one in their right mind would buy the app. The “glowing” ratings are from developers or people that they developers have given free codes to so long as they put glowing ratings in. It’s clear because the same 2 to 3 raters have ratings posted in “all” the apps that the developer has submitted.
Also, showing the average “number” of ratings per price point would be interesting. However, that probably wouldn’t show the problem I just mentioned.
I use AppSniper to look over new apps that are released every day. I find myself banning developers that post 4 or more apps with just different data. These are apps like those apps that allow you to put a number in so that you can “fast dial” a contact. The only difference to those is an icon. Those apps really annoy me.
I really don’t know what I would do without AppSniper. The ability to not see the thousands of “Book” apps that are being price changed or added is just a dream come true to me. AppSniper should be a “must have” app on everybody’s iPhone/iPod touch!
Sorry for the length there. I would post a similar article as yours except I have no idea how to get the data and I don’t have a great working knowledge of statistics.
Hi Dave, no comment is too long! Stirring the pot is what this column is all about. I am happy to hear everyone’s feedback.
The initial point of the article was to outline how the top free applications had poor reviews and why. I may have veered off that path a bit, but I think the data shows that many of the top free applications (not all free applications as you pointed out) have poor reviews for various reasons. Some are not warranted.
An example would be Zombieville USA. The paid version has a four-star rating while the free lite version has a three-star. Many of the negative reviews were because the lite version contained only a single level or a single weapon with no mention of gameplay elements or anything of importance. The lite version is intended as a demo and I believe should be reviewed as one.
Another more general example would be the free Skype application. One of the main reasons it was voted down was because “it crashed.” The problem is, most of the negative votes came from jailbreak users. Skype specifically outlined in their description that they don’t support those users. In theory, the Skype application, without the unwarranted negative jailbreak reviews, would be much closer or at a four-star rating. The difference with this app is that this problem would occur whether the application was free or not.
“A statistic you should look into as well is the ratings per price of the app. How do apps that are $0.99 rate on average compared to apps that are $4.99 or $9.99? That would be interesting to see. I suspect, the $0.99 apps are going to be rated fairly poorly too.”
I actually have a graph of that in my possession that simply didn’t make it into the article. It does show that the higher the price of the app (up to a certain point) the higher the rating. But, those same higher reviewed applications have way less total reviews.
Thanks again for the feedback.
I would also suggest that the biggest reason that ratings go up with cost has to do with the age group that are entering the reviews. I suspect that the cheaper the app, the younger the audience. The younger the audience, the lower the rating.
Also, when looking at ratings, it’s a good idea to look at the reviews history of reviews. I have found that apps that probably should get 1 or 2 stars, yet are getting 5 stars from a couple of early reviewers, that when I click on those reviewers, I find that they have reviewed all the apps from the same developer at 5 stars. I suspect that these are either the developer themselves or people that the developer has “paid” or bribed to give high ratings.
I have seen several apps that have this pattern so far.
Here is an example of people being super dumb.
mammerm -Mar 14, 2009 wrote a review titled:
Almost Perfect
And then gave the app ONE STAR! ALMOST PERFECT!? ONE STAR!? What kind of idiot give an “Almost Perfect” app ONE flipping star!? do they not know that thats what the FOUR star is for!?
Holy Crap some people should have their rating privileges revoked
Go onto the website http://www.appshopper.com and t does basicly the same thing
I’ve used that trick of downloading a previously purchased app to solve problems of syncing an app onto my touch. And I’m thinking it’s also good if you want to reload a deleted app while on the go, because like everyone else I have more apps than pages. Yes there’s no charge and I guess that should hold even if the app has gone up in price.
I used to use AppShopper too because I’m cheap and didn’t want to pay for AppSniper. But AppSniper let’s me keep lists of apps I’m watching, in case I miss an update in the feed, which can be very
long. And like Dave M. said you can filter those stupid rip-off book apps, a lot of which is free thru “Stanza.” Anyway AppShopper is a good back-up when AppSniper has problems.
Great thoughts Tyler
We’ve seen the same type of results with the app’s we’ve released. I think part of the reason is that people outside the target demographic of a free app still download and rank it. For example, I’ve seen reviews of a free business app that said “this is the worst game ever!”. Whereas someone who downloads a paid app is more likely to be interested in what the app does.
We’ve also noticed that we are more likely to get very positive comments email to us, and more likely to have negative comments posted to iTunes.
How are we supposed to make the payments can we make it using our paypal account?
These user ratings surprised me. Thank you for this article.