iPhone Game Development - Chris Craft [149]
Here's a list of some great iPhone application review sites:
iPhone Application List. http://iphoneapplicationlistcom
iPhone App Reviews. www.iphoneappreviewsnet
Apple iPhone School. www.appleiphoneschoolcom
What's on iPhone. www.whatsoniphonecom
I use this iPhone software. http://iphoneiusethiscom
AppVee. www.appveecom
App Store Apps. www.appstoreappscom
iLounge.com. www.iloungecom
All applications on the App Store can have customer reviews, but there is nothing stopping developers like you from highlighting specific user testimonials in their applications' descriptions. This is a great way for you to show off all the great feedback your applications have received from users.
Customer ratings
Customer ratings are a prominent part of your application's App Store listing. They are important to potential buyers, and they should be important to you. Originally the App Store would allow anyone to leave ratings or reviews for your application, even someone who had never purchased your app. This lead to a great deal of weeping and gnashing of teeth for many developers due to random people—sometimes even competitors—leaving negative reviews for applications they had never even bothered to try. Eventually Apple changed how customer ratings work on the App Store so only users who actually purchase an application can leave ratings or reviews on it.
An application owner can rate an application on a scale of one to five stars, with five stars being the highest rating and one star being the lowest. Once users have left their rating for an application, this information becomes available for other potential buyers to consider. It is imperative that you make every effort on your part for your applications to become five-star applications.
Your application's App Store listing shows customer ratings in various formats. Potential buyers can see the average rating for the current version, which could be something like four and a half stars. Next to this value there is a number that shows how many ratings this average is derived from. Right below that there is a breakdown of how many votes the application received for each score value from one to five stars.
Take a quick look at the customer ratings for the current number-one application on the App Store. You will probably see values similar to the following:
Average rating for the current version: 4.5 stars (2,843 ratings)
5 stars: 2,178 (77 percent)
4 stars: 309 (11 percent)
3 stars: 105 (4 percent)
2 stars: 41 (1 percent)
1 star: 210 (7 percent)
It's important to note that over 90 percent of the ratings for this application are three stars or higher. Also notice that even the number-one application on the App Store has a decent number of one-star ratings. That just goes to show you that the App Store is a cruel mistress, and there is very low tolerance of any imperfection.
Caution
Since iPhone OS version 2.2, Apple has prompted users to rate an application before it is deleted from the device. Users tend to remove their least-favorite apps first.
You can see the average rating for the current version of the application, but you also get to see the average rating for all versions of the application. And again, you can expand the average rating for all versions so you can see the breakdown of votes for each rating score. This allows potential buyers to see if the quality of an application is getting better or worse over time. Users can even use this as a kind of litmus test to see if they want to install the latest update for an application. If a recent update has a lot of poor ratings, it may be a sign that there are issues with that update.
Using App Store Search Secrets
When you hear the term search engine optimization, or SEO, the first thing you probably think of are Web-based