Most Common Words Used In App Store Reviews

Do you ever take the time to give an iPhone app a review? Not many iDevice owners actually get around to posting their thoughts regarding a particular app in iTunes. But, those that do are relied upon by the entire App Store community. How many times does a single review help you make your mind up over a questionable app? If ever I'm deliberating whether an iPhone application is worth the cash, I always scroll down and let the reviews convince me, one way or the other. Interestingly enough, Marco Arment (developer of Instapaper), has conducted a little experiment into the language of App Store reviews. He's discovered the most common words for five-star and one-star reviews, and the results are pretty funny (if unsurprising). If you love an app, you're most likely to use the word "awesome" when reviewing it. The second most popular word used is "worth." Interestingly enough, the most popular word for one-star reviews is "waste." At the end of the day, all we want is to get value for money when buying an app, and this is definitely reflected in the results:

These are the top words by rating, with descending frequency: ★★★★★: awesome, worth, thanks, amazing, simple, perfect, price, everything, ever, must, ipod, before, found, store, never, recommend, done, take, always, touch ★☆☆☆☆: waste, money, crashes, tried, useless, nothing, paid, open, deleted, downloaded, didn’t, says, stupid, anything, actually, account, bought, apple, already

What I find pretty funny, is how easy it is to construct basic sentences out of the words given. If you take the one-star assortment, for example, you can make: "waste" of "money," it "crashes." I've "tried" rebooting but get "nothing." It's "stupid," can't believe I "bought" this. You can just imagine reading that in iTunes, right? At least there's one little gem in the five-star assortment of words: "thanks." Nice to know iDevice owners are aware of the work developers put into their applications. You can check out the full results of Marco's investigation by heading over to his site. Thanks for posting it, Marco!

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