Under the Radar

00:00:00 ◼   ► Welcome to Under the Radar,

00:00:01 ◼   ► a show about independent iOS app development.

00:00:04 ◼   ► I'm Marco Arment.

00:00:05 ◼   ► - And I'm David Smith.

00:00:06 ◼   ► Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes,

00:00:08 ◼   ► so let's get started.

00:00:10 ◼   ► So today we are going to be talking

00:00:12 ◼   ► about reviews in the App Store.

00:00:14 ◼   ► - Again.

00:00:15 ◼   ► - Again, so if you're an eagle-eared listener of the show,

00:00:18 ◼   ► you will realize that just two weeks ago in episode 62,

00:00:22 ◼   ► we were talking about reviews in the App Store,

00:00:24 ◼   ► and little did we know that here we are a fortnight later,

00:00:27 ◼   ► we would be doing it again.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Not necessarily the plan,

00:00:31 ◼   ► but Apple announced yesterday as a recording

00:00:34 ◼   ► a bunch of updates specifically around iOS 10.3,

00:00:38 ◼   ► and included in that is a fairly substantial pair of changes

00:00:43 ◼   ► to the review system in the App Store,

00:00:45 ◼   ► and so it seemed kind of only appropriate

00:00:47 ◼   ► to follow up on that, to talk about it,

00:00:50 ◼   ► just because now sort of going forward,

00:00:53 ◼   ► whatever we said two weeks ago is going to have to make sense

00:00:57 ◼   ► in this broader context that Apple is changing.

00:01:00 ◼   ► So the short version is Apple is introducing two changes.

00:01:03 ◼   ► The first is a standardized way for asking for reviews

00:01:07 ◼   ► modally within your applications,

00:01:10 ◼   ► with a thing called SK Store Review Controller,

00:01:13 ◼   ► and then the second thing they're doing is

00:01:15 ◼   ► they're going to be changing the App Store itself

00:01:19 ◼   ► to allow developers to respond to customer reviews

00:01:23 ◼   ► that are written in the App Store.

00:01:25 ◼   ► So we'll kind of work through those individually,

00:01:27 ◼   ► but I'm probably starting off by talking about

00:01:29 ◼   ► the new modal display that we can get.

00:01:32 ◼   ► It's probably worth saying this is actually not

00:01:34 ◼   ► the first time that Apple has had a modal

00:01:37 ◼   ► would you like to review this application dialogue.

00:01:40 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:01:42 ◼   ► The first version of this,

00:01:43 ◼   ► which you have to have been doing iOS development

00:01:45 ◼   ► for a while to remember,

00:01:47 ◼   ► there used to be a thing in the App Store

00:01:48 ◼   ► where when you deleted an app, only when you deleted it,

00:01:52 ◼   ► when you deleted it, it would pop up and say,

00:01:54 ◼   ► "Before you delete this app,

00:01:55 ◼   ► "would you like to leave a review?"

00:01:57 ◼   ► - So bad. - Yeah.

00:01:58 ◼   ► I'm not sure where they thought this would be a great idea

00:02:01 ◼   ► that someone who has actively said,

00:02:05 ◼   ► "I no longer want this app,"

00:02:07 ◼   ► and then you ask them, "Well, what did you think about it?"

00:02:09 ◼   ► - And that was the only time

00:02:10 ◼   ► they were ever prompted to review apps.

00:02:13 ◼   ► - Yeah. (laughing)

00:02:14 ◼   ► Surprising, not unsurprisingly,

00:02:16 ◼   ► there were a lot of one-star reviews

00:02:17 ◼   ► that came through that system.

00:02:19 ◼   ► So this one's better.

00:02:22 ◼   ► So the new system, which I'll just briefly overview,

00:02:24 ◼   ► is there's a new method,

00:02:26 ◼   ► like I said, the SKStoreReviewController in StoreKit

00:02:29 ◼   ► that you can call a method that just says request review.

00:02:33 ◼   ► And this method is interesting

00:02:36 ◼   ► because it doesn't pop up necessarily a modal display.

00:02:39 ◼   ► It's probably worth saying this is always modal.

00:02:41 ◼   ► This is not like a button that you can push

00:02:45 ◼   ► in your apps in your app and then have it bring it up.

00:02:48 ◼   ► This is something where it's always gonna be

00:02:49 ◼   ► slightly an interruption

00:02:52 ◼   ► in terms of the way they're structuring it.

00:02:53 ◼   ► Because you call this method and you say,

00:02:55 ◼   ► "This is probably a good time

00:02:58 ◼   ► "to request an App Store review."

00:03:00 ◼   ► You have no guarantees as to whether

00:03:01 ◼   ► that modal will actually pop up then or not.

00:03:04 ◼   ► We'll get into reasons a bit later,

00:03:07 ◼   ► but Apple is keeping control over whether anything

00:03:09 ◼   ► is actually shown to you.

00:03:11 ◼   ► But you can say this is a good time.

00:03:13 ◼   ► So say, for example, like the usual examples

00:03:16 ◼   ► that people will throw around is

00:03:17 ◼   ► a customer completes something

00:03:19 ◼   ► that would make sense.

00:03:20 ◼   ► That say, "I have an audiobook app," which I do.

00:03:23 ◼   ► And say you have just finished a book.

00:03:26 ◼   ► That may be a good time to prompt them to write a review.

00:03:31 ◼   ► They've just completed this thing,

00:03:32 ◼   ► hope that they enjoyed it,

00:03:33 ◼   ► they now have a full sense of the app.

00:03:34 ◼   ► It's not really an interruption in the same way

00:03:36 ◼   ► because it's not like they're opening up the app

00:03:39 ◼   ► to go and listen.

00:03:40 ◼   ► They just finished listening to all of their things.

00:03:44 ◼   ► And so now may be a reasonable time.

00:03:46 ◼   ► But you can say this is a good time.

00:03:48 ◼   ► And if Apple says it's a good idea,

00:03:50 ◼   ► it'll pop up and show this alert to them.

00:03:53 ◼   ► And they're also adding a slightly,

00:03:55 ◼   ► they're tweaking things a little bit

00:03:56 ◼   ► in terms of giving us an explicit URL

00:03:59 ◼   ► to link out to the App Store with deep linking

00:04:03 ◼   ► if we still wanna do the setting screen version.

00:04:07 ◼   ► That's now sort of part of this,

00:04:09 ◼   ► but that's not really part of the SDK.

00:04:11 ◼   ► They're saying in the documentation

00:04:13 ◼   ► that if you wanna do a modal pop-up in the app

00:04:16 ◼   ► to leave a review, use this new request review method.

00:04:19 ◼   ► If you would still like to have a button

00:04:21 ◼   ► in your setting screen,

00:04:22 ◼   ► here's the query parameter that you can add to the end.

00:04:26 ◼   ► Overall, I think, I mean,

00:04:29 ◼   ► mostly what I love about this

00:04:31 ◼   ► is that Apple is taking this seriously

00:04:33 ◼   ► and doing something about it.

00:04:34 ◼   ► I think it's been a problem for,

00:04:37 ◼   ► I mean, it's been years now

00:04:38 ◼   ► that we've had this situation

00:04:40 ◼   ► where there's so much ambiguity,

00:04:42 ◼   ► there's no leadership on the App Store policy side

00:04:45 ◼   ► of things about this.

00:04:45 ◼   ► And so you end up with this weird kind of asymmetric warfare

00:04:48 ◼   ► where having five star in the App Store

00:04:53 ◼   ► is an important thing for sales.

00:04:54 ◼   ► The best way to get that is to keep bugging your users

00:04:57 ◼   ► to give you those reviews.

00:04:58 ◼   ► And if you do that, you'll be rewarded with more downloads,

00:05:01 ◼   ► and that creates this vicious cycle

00:05:03 ◼   ► that if you don't wanna get into that,

00:05:04 ◼   ► then your app's at a disadvantage

00:05:06 ◼   ► 'cause you don't, if you're comparing my app,

00:05:08 ◼   ► which has 20 or 30 reviews,

00:05:11 ◼   ► to an app that has 200 or 300 reviews, it looks bad.

00:05:13 ◼   ► And so at least what I like here

00:05:15 ◼   ► is that Apple is saying,

00:05:16 ◼   ► this is an important thing for us to dive into.

00:05:18 ◼   ► This is something that they wanna have some control over.

00:05:21 ◼   ► And then obviously, I love the way

00:05:23 ◼   ► that in classic Apple fashion,

00:05:25 ◼   ► they're maintaining a lot of control about it,

00:05:27 ◼   ► that it isn't an API that we can always pop up a dialog for

00:05:32 ◼   ► in the same way that when they added the Mail Compose UI,

00:05:36 ◼   ► where we can write emails within our apps

00:05:38 ◼   ► without having to go out to the Mail app,

00:05:40 ◼   ► they did that in a way that we can always pop that up.

00:05:42 ◼   ► It's not like we're going to request,

00:05:44 ◼   ► we're gonna request a Compose page and it doesn't show up.

00:05:47 ◼   ► - That actually isn't true,

00:05:48 ◼   ► but you could query it to determine

00:05:50 ◼   ► whether it was enabled or not.

00:05:52 ◼   ► - Sure, but I think what you're saying there

00:05:54 ◼   ► is like the can send mail part,

00:05:56 ◼   ► which is, does the user have Mail configured on their iPhone?

00:05:59 ◼   ► But assuming they have a Mail account

00:06:02 ◼   ► configured with their iPhone,

00:06:03 ◼   ► it'll always show up is what I'm getting at.

00:06:06 ◼   ► But here, Apple has the ability

00:06:08 ◼   ► to dial this backwards and forwards.

00:06:10 ◼   ► And so they've initially said through a couple of interviews,

00:06:13 ◼   ► it seemed like they gave to Daring Fireball

00:06:16 ◼   ► and Jim Delramped at The Loop,

00:06:18 ◼   ► they're gonna basically,

00:06:22 ◼   ► if you're never gonna show a user a prompt

00:06:24 ◼   ► more than three times a year, I believe,

00:06:26 ◼   ► and if they set a, if they actually do send a review,

00:06:31 ◼   ► they won't be asked again for a year.

00:06:33 ◼   ► So if you asked, you know, every time the app launched,

00:06:35 ◼   ► you said, "Hey, it's a great time to send a review,"

00:06:38 ◼   ► after doing that three times,

00:06:39 ◼   ► it'll stop working in a transparent way to you

00:06:43 ◼   ► for a whole year.

00:06:44 ◼   ► And there's also a master switch in the settings app

00:06:47 ◼   ► that a customer can say, "I never wanna see these."

00:06:49 ◼   ► And if you flip that switch,

00:06:51 ◼   ► irrespective of how much the developer is saying,

00:06:53 ◼   ► "Hey, review me, review me, review me,"

00:06:55 ◼   ► it'll never actually work.

00:06:57 ◼   ► Which, overall, I think this is a good step forward.

00:07:00 ◼   ► I'm not sure if I'm gonna use it.

00:07:02 ◼   ► I think I probably won't initially,

00:07:05 ◼   ► 'cause it's still modal,

00:07:06 ◼   ► and I'd rather just use the deep linking into the App Store

00:07:09 ◼   ► from a button in my settings page.

00:07:12 ◼   ► But I like, at the very least,

00:07:14 ◼   ► that Apple is diving into this and taking it seriously.

00:07:17 ◼   ► Do you think you're gonna use it?

00:07:18 ◼   ► - Probably not for the same reason of, you know,

00:07:21 ◼   ► it is still modal and everything.

00:07:23 ◼   ► But I really do love, like, this is such,

00:07:28 ◼   ► you know, as you said, this is such like an amazing,

00:07:30 ◼   ► a very Apple-y solution to a problem.

00:07:33 ◼   ► It's so clever, and it's like, you know,

00:07:35 ◼   ► here was this problem of the developers

00:07:37 ◼   ► having a very strong incentive

00:07:38 ◼   ► to make the user experience worse for people.

00:07:41 ◼   ► And, you know, it was extra work for developers, too,

00:07:44 ◼   ► to have to integrate some library

00:07:46 ◼   ► or to build their own, you know, little pop-up things.

00:07:48 ◼   ► And, you know, so it was like,

00:07:49 ◼   ► you take this kind of dirty, messy problem,

00:07:53 ◼   ► and you apply a really elegant combination of solutions

00:07:55 ◼   ► to it, which is, we're gonna standardize this,

00:07:57 ◼   ► we're gonna make it easier when people

00:07:59 ◼   ► do wanna leave ratings.

00:08:00 ◼   ► 'Cause like, have you seen the box yet?

00:08:01 ◼   ► It's like, the one in the beta,

00:08:03 ◼   ► like, it just pops up with a little, like, you know,

00:08:05 ◼   ► one through five stars and submit.

00:08:07 ◼   ► And so, it's actually easier to submit ratings

00:08:10 ◼   ► this way as a user, 'cause you don't have to bounce

00:08:12 ◼   ► into the App Store app and submit something there

00:08:14 ◼   ► and log in, type in your password.

00:08:16 ◼   ► You just have it all in a modal dialog

00:08:18 ◼   ► right there in the app.

00:08:19 ◼   ► So, it's easier for the developer,

00:08:20 ◼   ► 'cause it's one line of code.

00:08:22 ◼   ► It's easier for the user, because you actually

00:08:24 ◼   ► leave the rating, and it's faster and everything.

00:08:27 ◼   ► And, in the most typical, wonderful Apple fashion,

00:08:30 ◼   ► it puts all the control of this back on the user.

00:08:33 ◼   ► So the user can then, as you see, go into that setting,

00:08:35 ◼   ► go into system settings and disable these globally,

00:08:38 ◼   ► if they want to.

00:08:40 ◼   ► And then, the developer has no way to tell

00:08:43 ◼   ► whether they're enabled or not,

00:08:44 ◼   ► and whether it's showing or not.

00:08:46 ◼   ► So, in theory, this is an amazing solution

00:08:50 ◼   ► for both developers and for users,

00:08:51 ◼   ► and for usability of the platform,

00:08:53 ◼   ► 'cause it kinda tames this messy thing

00:08:56 ◼   ► that we all have a very strong incentive to do.

00:08:59 ◼   ► In practice, so, and again, in theory,

00:09:02 ◼   ► the way this works is that, at a future time,

00:09:06 ◼   ► that is as yet unspecified, by the way,

00:09:09 ◼   ► I gotta say, I really am not crazy about

00:09:12 ◼   ► the way Apple has very minimally documented this

00:09:17 ◼   ► on the page, and then has given additional documentation

00:09:21 ◼   ► through PR channels to a couple of blogs.

00:09:24 ◼   ► Like, that, I think, is odd.

00:09:26 ◼   ► I know, I can see why they do it.

00:09:28 ◼   ► I assume they do it so that way they can be

00:09:30 ◼   ► a little bit fuzzy and squishy with the rules

00:09:32 ◼   ► and change them later as they evolve

00:09:34 ◼   ► and as the situation evolves and as they learn

00:09:36 ◼   ► how these things are used in practice.

00:09:38 ◼   ► But I don't like the idea that you have to be

00:09:40 ◼   ► monitoring different blogs from people who are,

00:09:43 ◼   ► you know, PR friendly with Apple

00:09:45 ◼   ► in order to get the whole picture of what the rules are

00:09:47 ◼   ► and what the mechanics are.

00:09:48 ◼   ► I think it would be a lot more effective for Apple

00:09:51 ◼   ► to just expand the documentation up front,

00:09:54 ◼   ► make that part of the official statement,

00:09:56 ◼   ► and then we worry about later, you know,

00:09:59 ◼   ► the process of changing that as policies evolve,

00:10:01 ◼   ► because abstract policy changes, it's a thing.

00:10:04 ◼   ► Like, hiding the information between different blogs

00:10:07 ◼   ► and PR channels to try to, like, obfuscate it

00:10:09 ◼   ► so most people don't hear it is not the right solution.

00:10:12 ◼   ► Anyway, so one of the bits of information

00:10:15 ◼   ► that is kind of unclear and told through PR channels

00:10:17 ◼   ► in various ways is that it will be required

00:10:22 ◼   ► at some point in the future that all review prompts

00:10:27 ◼   ► use this API and that other types of review prompts

00:10:30 ◼   ► will be prohibited.

00:10:31 ◼   ► That data's not yet been set,

00:10:32 ◼   ► but at some point that will be the case.

00:10:34 ◼   ► The requirement that these things be only sent in this way

00:10:38 ◼   ► and to disallow other types of prompting

00:10:41 ◼   ► is required for this to be a good user experience,

00:10:44 ◼   ► because without that part, you're gonna have no incentive

00:10:48 ◼   ► for a lot of developers to use it.

00:10:49 ◼   ► It is faster, yes, but developers are gonna find,

00:10:52 ◼   ► especially like big data-driven corporations

00:10:54 ◼   ► like, you know, Twitter, Instagram, stuff like that,

00:10:56 ◼   ► they're gonna find, well, we get more reviews

00:10:58 ◼   ► if we just ask the old way,

00:10:59 ◼   ► because that can't be disabled or throttled by the system.

00:11:02 ◼   ► So, and the other interesting part, of course,

00:11:05 ◼   ► is like all the different obfuscation

00:11:07 ◼   ► that developers put in front of these things often.

00:11:08 ◼   ► Like, they'll be like, how are you liking the app so far?

00:11:11 ◼   ► And if you say you're loving it,

00:11:13 ◼   ► then they'll ask you to review it.

00:11:14 ◼   ► And if you say, I'm not loving it so much,

00:11:16 ◼   ► they'll be like, oh, please contact us privately.

00:11:18 ◼   ► So there's all this, all this like mess

00:11:20 ◼   ► to have to work through.

00:11:21 ◼   ► But unless developers are forced to only use this system,

00:11:26 ◼   ► it's not gonna get better for users.

00:11:28 ◼   ► And Apple has said, yes, they intend to do that.

00:11:30 ◼   ► In the future, they intend to make that a requirement.

00:11:31 ◼   ► My question is, how are they gonna enforce that?

00:11:35 ◼   ► Because already today, you have clear rules

00:11:40 ◼   ► against using push notifications for spam,

00:11:44 ◼   ► marketing, promotion, things like that.

00:11:47 ◼   ► And you look around, like every game uses it for promotion.

00:11:51 ◼   ► Every news app, like every big company app,

00:11:53 ◼   ► Twitter, the App Store uses notifications sometimes

00:11:57 ◼   ► for promotional purposes and marketing purposes.

00:12:01 ◼   ► Like, Apple can't even follow that rule.

00:12:03 ◼   ► They break it all the time.

00:12:04 ◼   ► Everyone breaks that rule all the time.

00:12:07 ◼   ► And even though there's app review rules against it,

00:12:09 ◼   ► I assume one of the reasons why that rule

00:12:12 ◼   ► goes almost completely unenforced, even unfollowed by Apple,

00:12:16 ◼   ► is that it's really hard to actually enforce that

00:12:19 ◼   ► in practice without adding like a report mechanism in the UI.

00:12:22 ◼   ► Because the only way Apple's gonna catch people

00:12:25 ◼   ► sending spam notifications, or marketing,

00:12:27 ◼   ► however they define that, is if it happens

00:12:29 ◼   ► during like the five minutes they're reviewing it

00:12:31 ◼   ► during app review, and that's very unlikely.

00:12:34 ◼   ► And so in practice, that just goes effectively unenforced,

00:12:37 ◼   ► and spam/promotional push notifications are rampant.

00:12:42 ◼   ► And with this system, this new review system,

00:12:46 ◼   ► I wonder if that's gonna, like how is that

00:12:48 ◼   ► gonna be any different?

00:12:49 ◼   ► Because if the rule starts to become,

00:12:52 ◼   ► well, you have to use this mechanism only

00:12:54 ◼   ► to ask people to review you in the App Store,

00:12:57 ◼   ► when are they gonna actually enforce that?

00:12:59 ◼   ► They're not gonna have people using every app

00:13:01 ◼   ► on the App Store for three days

00:13:02 ◼   ► to see if they get prompted or not.

00:13:04 ◼   ► And so the only way to enforce that

00:13:07 ◼   ► is to have some kind of reporting system after the fact.

00:13:10 ◼   ► But I can't possibly see Apple gumming up the UI of iOS.

00:13:14 ◼   ► Like where would it be, like the 3D touch menu,

00:13:15 ◼   ► like where the share thing is?

00:13:17 ◼   ► I can't see them gumming up the iOS UI anywhere

00:13:21 ◼   ► with like a report bad behavior of this app button.

00:13:23 ◼   ► I mean, it'd be interesting if they did.

00:13:25 ◼   ► I'm not sure if that would be overall good

00:13:27 ◼   ► or not for the system, but for the purpose

00:13:29 ◼   ► of like enforcement of tricky rules like this,

00:13:32 ◼   ► I don't see any other way to do it.

00:13:34 ◼   ► And without that enforcement of that rule,

00:13:36 ◼   ► without very strict enforcement of that rule,

00:13:40 ◼   ► I don't see how the system is gonna actually

00:13:42 ◼   ► fix the problem for developers who have a company

00:13:47 ◼   ► and big data behind them saying

00:13:49 ◼   ► they still have to do it the old way.

00:13:51 ◼   ► - Sure, I mean, I see where you're coming from,

00:13:54 ◼   ► but maybe I have slightly more hope for the future.

00:13:57 ◼   ► Because I see this thing and I see what,

00:14:00 ◼   ► like when they say at some point in the future

00:14:03 ◼   ► this will be the only sanctioned way to do this,

00:14:07 ◼   ► I tend to read this as in iOS 10.3 it'll be fine,

00:14:12 ◼   ► but in iOS 11 it probably won't.

00:14:14 ◼   ► Like if I had to guess at what that timeline will be

00:14:17 ◼   ► is that this June-ish at WWDC,

00:14:21 ◼   ► they'll be unveiling whatever it is

00:14:24 ◼   ► they're gonna be doing for iOS 11,

00:14:25 ◼   ► and as part of the rules that will go into effect

00:14:29 ◼   ► for this fall, this will be one of the new rules,

00:14:33 ◼   ► that if you want to modally prompt a user for a review,

00:14:37 ◼   ► you must do it using the pre-approved API.

00:14:40 ◼   ► The enforcement question is, I mean,

00:14:43 ◼   ► it's always roughed, but just to say

00:14:46 ◼   ► that it's incredibly difficult to enforce or police

00:14:49 ◼   ► doesn't mean that it's not a good policy.

00:14:51 ◼   ► And I think there's ways that Apple

00:14:54 ◼   ► can enforce it programmatically,

00:14:56 ◼   ► both in terms of, obviously they know

00:15:00 ◼   ► when people are leaving reviews.

00:15:05 ◼   ► They know where they're coming from,

00:15:07 ◼   ► what they were doing before that.

00:15:09 ◼   ► There's a certain amount of exposure

00:15:11 ◼   ► that they have on the data side,

00:15:12 ◼   ► that if an app is seeming to send users

00:15:17 ◼   ► to the App Store to leave reviews,

00:15:21 ◼   ► at a pace that seems inconsistent

00:15:24 ◼   ► with the install base, for example.

00:15:26 ◼   ► My guess is they have a fairly good sense

00:15:28 ◼   ► of what the typical rate for reviews for an app

00:15:33 ◼   ► based on how many people are using it is and things.

00:15:37 ◼   ► I think they have tools from the data side

00:15:39 ◼   ► and then back in, using, I mean, in many ways

00:15:42 ◼   ► they get sort of piggyback on what they've done

00:15:43 ◼   ► with iTunes Connect Analytics,

00:15:45 ◼   ► which have their drawbacks,

00:15:46 ◼   ► but at least give them a starting point,

00:15:48 ◼   ► that I imagine, with a little bit of math,

00:15:50 ◼   ► you could work out, this app is clearly

00:15:53 ◼   ► getting way more reviews than it should

00:15:56 ◼   ► for using the approaches that we expect.

00:16:01 ◼   ► And from that perspective, and then you can sort of

00:16:04 ◼   ► chase that down and kind of work that out.

00:16:06 ◼   ► But ultimately, exactly how they police it,

00:16:09 ◼   ► I think is, that's an enforcement problem,

00:16:11 ◼   ► that's something that we deal with a lot in the App Store.

00:16:14 ◼   ► And I think, and the unfortunate thing is,

00:16:16 ◼   ► what Apple often seems to do is,

00:16:18 ◼   ► they'll pick a few sacrificial lands to be made of,

00:16:23 ◼   ► and some app is going to get pulled out of the App Store

00:16:28 ◼   ► for a week because they prompted for review

00:16:32 ◼   ► after the policy goes into effect,

00:16:34 ◼   ► and you can kind of scare people

00:16:37 ◼   ► into compliance down the road.

00:16:38 ◼   ► Which is not great if you're that app,

00:16:41 ◼   ► but as you're saying, it's a really hard thing to perform.

00:16:45 ◼   ► - It also doesn't work.

00:16:46 ◼   ► That only works if all iOS developers

00:16:48 ◼   ► are part of the same community

00:16:49 ◼   ► and everyone follows the rules,

00:16:50 ◼   ► and neither of those things are true.

00:16:51 ◼   ► - Sure, but I mean, I think it's one of these things of,

00:16:55 ◼   ► they're never going to get 100% compliance.

00:16:58 ◼   ► But if they can get 80% compliance,

00:17:00 ◼   ► that's still probably good enough.

00:17:02 ◼   ► - Absolutely.

00:17:03 ◼   ► - So I like that it's, this is their policy,

00:17:05 ◼   ► this is where they're heading.

00:17:07 ◼   ► Down the road, there'll be a world where,

00:17:09 ◼   ► most of the time, if you're a user

00:17:11 ◼   ► who just doesn't want to leave reviews,

00:17:13 ◼   ► you can flip a master switch.

00:17:14 ◼   ► Otherwise, you'll be prompted three times a year to do it

00:17:18 ◼   ► in a standardized way with this, you know,

00:17:20 ◼   ► a non-sort of scammy interaction.

00:17:23 ◼   ► And I like that.

00:17:25 ◼   ► But I'm sorry, I mean, I just have more hope for,

00:17:28 ◼   ► that if they've invested all this effort

00:17:31 ◼   ► in building this API and taking this problem seriously,

00:17:35 ◼   ► they're also going to be serious about the enforcement side

00:17:37 ◼   ► and do their best to make that work.

00:17:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, I hope so.

00:17:42 ◼   ► I guess we'll see.

00:17:43 ◼   ► Also, a point of clarification.

00:17:44 ◼   ► You breezed by it earlier, but I do want to clarify,

00:17:46 ◼   ► 'cause a lot of people are getting this wrong on Twitter,

00:17:48 ◼   ► that linking people out with a thing,

00:17:51 ◼   ► with like a page, like in your settings,

00:17:53 ◼   ► like what you and I do.

00:17:54 ◼   ► Like, you know, I have my little thing in overcast settings

00:17:56 ◼   ► saying this many people have reviewed this version,

00:17:58 ◼   ► click here to go leave a review.

00:18:00 ◼   ► That's still both possible and allowed.

00:18:04 ◼   ► Apple has clarified that in some of these PR statements,

00:18:06 ◼   ► that you can still do that, that will still work,

00:18:09 ◼   ► it just won't use this API.

00:18:10 ◼   ► You can use this API additionally if you want to,

00:18:13 ◼   ► but linking out to the page via an explicit user action

00:18:16 ◼   ► is still permitted, as long as you didn't do

00:18:19 ◼   ► a modal dialog box, which again,

00:18:20 ◼   ► it's like the distinctions here are gonna make this harder

00:18:22 ◼   ► and hard to enforce, but anyway,

00:18:24 ◼   ► hopefully we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

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00:19:23 ◼   ► - So the other part that we probably should dive into

00:19:25 ◼   ► about this whole system is, so once people have left

00:19:27 ◼   ► the reviews in whatever mechanism you've used

00:19:31 ◼   ► to get them to that page, whether it's the modal pop-up,

00:19:34 ◼   ► you're linking to them from the settings page

00:19:36 ◼   ► in your app store, or in your settings app in your screen,

00:19:39 ◼   ► or they just went to the app store themselves.

00:19:42 ◼   ► In 10.3, we're going to also have the ability

00:19:45 ◼   ► to respond to customer reviews

00:19:48 ◼   ► that are left in the app store.

00:19:50 ◼   ► Exactly how this looks is a bit up to debate,

00:19:53 ◼   ► but I mean, this is something that the Google Play Store,

00:19:55 ◼   ► for example, has had for a while,

00:19:56 ◼   ► so I imagine it'll have a similar kind of appearance

00:19:58 ◼   ► where if you went to the ratings and reviews section

00:20:02 ◼   ► of an app's page, a customer leaves a review,

00:20:05 ◼   ► underneath of it, there may be a little,

00:20:07 ◼   ► you know, there'll be a little bubble that says

00:20:09 ◼   ► that the developer can put some text into,

00:20:12 ◼   ► and there'll probably be some limits

00:20:13 ◼   ► onto the number of characters or things like that,

00:20:16 ◼   ► but the expectation, I think, is that those,

00:20:18 ◼   ► we're going to be going into iTunes Connect,

00:20:21 ◼   ► and there's already, actually, I'm not sure

00:20:24 ◼   ► how many people actually ever go there,

00:20:25 ◼   ► but in iTunes Connect, if you dig around a little bit,

00:20:27 ◼   ► there's actually a ratings and reviews area for your app,

00:20:31 ◼   ► where it shows you all of the reviews

00:20:32 ◼   ► that have ever been left, and my guess is

00:20:34 ◼   ► they're just gonna add a little text box

00:20:36 ◼   ► underneath all of those where we can log in to iTunes Connect

00:20:39 ◼   ► and go through and respond to this,

00:20:41 ◼   ► and I think we've had a few clarifications about this

00:20:44 ◼   ► where it's not going to be like a threaded conversation,

00:20:47 ◼   ► they're not turning the review section into a forum,

00:20:52 ◼   ► but it's going to be, a customer can write a review,

00:20:56 ◼   ► and a developer can write a response,

00:20:58 ◼   ► and both parties can edit the review or the response

00:21:02 ◼   ► as makes sense, but it's not like

00:21:04 ◼   ► we're gonna have a back and forth.

00:21:06 ◼   ► I like this, I think.

00:21:08 ◼   ► I like it mostly just from the perspective of,

00:21:12 ◼   ► one of the most discouraging things you'll ever run into

00:21:15 ◼   ► is when you read a review, which, granted,

00:21:18 ◼   ► I don't do as much anymore, but it's still something

00:21:20 ◼   ► I do from time to time, is you encounter a user

00:21:23 ◼   ► who says they like the app, but they wish it did X,

00:21:28 ◼   ► and maybe they hold a hostage star about that.

00:21:31 ◼   ► Oh, it's a four, they'll give it four stars,

00:21:33 ◼   ► I would give it five if it could do this.

00:21:35 ◼   ► - You're lucky if they only hold one star back for that.

00:21:37 ◼   ► - Or maybe it's a double hostage star situation,

00:21:39 ◼   ► like there's lots of variables that come into play here,

00:21:42 ◼   ► but if they do that, and it turns out the app

00:21:44 ◼   ► actually does that, and they just don't know how to do it,

00:21:46 ◼   ► like this seems like a great tool for being able to say,

00:21:50 ◼   ► hey, if you click on this button,

00:21:53 ◼   ► you are actually able to do this,

00:21:55 ◼   ► and you can hopefully clarify those misunderstandings.

00:21:58 ◼   ► It's obviously not gonna be a great mechanism

00:22:00 ◼   ► to do detailed customer support.

00:22:02 ◼   ► My guess is a lot of developers' responses to these

00:22:06 ◼   ► are just gonna be, I'm sorry you're having trouble with this,

00:22:09 ◼   ► please email me to go deeper on this

00:22:13 ◼   ► and to actually resolve your problem.

00:22:15 ◼   ► So in that sense, it's not gonna be a great venue for that,

00:22:17 ◼   ► but I think it's nice, though,

00:22:19 ◼   ► for if another customer comes around,

00:22:22 ◼   ► and here's this two-star review that says,

00:22:27 ◼   ► hey, the app doesn't do this, or it didn't do this right,

00:22:30 ◼   ► or something like that, and then underneath of it,

00:22:32 ◼   ► it says, there's a developer response that says,

00:22:35 ◼   ► I'm sorry you had this trouble, you can actually do that,

00:22:38 ◼   ► here's how you do it, if you need more help,

00:22:40 ◼   ► send me an email, and I'm happy to walk that through.

00:22:43 ◼   ► That sets up a great, I think it turns

00:22:45 ◼   ► a negative customer experience

00:22:47 ◼   ► into potentially a positive one.

00:22:49 ◼   ► I'm not super excited, though,

00:22:52 ◼   ► that it's another inbox that we have to manage,

00:22:54 ◼   ► and another thing that we just have to keep up with,

00:22:59 ◼   ► there's this new bit of busy work,

00:23:01 ◼   ► but the reality is, overall, I'd rather

00:23:03 ◼   ► a system like this, where at least I can do something

00:23:06 ◼   ► to respond to these misunderstandings,

00:23:10 ◼   ► or these bad reviews, and hopefully

00:23:12 ◼   ► turn them around a little bit.

00:23:13 ◼   ► But the reality is, I'm probably just gonna end up,

00:23:16 ◼   ► so I have hired someone to do my customer support for me,

00:23:19 ◼   ► and this will just likely be another inbox

00:23:21 ◼   ► that he goes through on a regular basis

00:23:23 ◼   ► to respond and clean up, and hopefully

00:23:27 ◼   ► it'll make that section of the App Store

00:23:29 ◼   ► a little bit more useful, I suppose.

00:23:31 ◼   ► Right now, it's just not.

00:23:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, I suppose it'll depend a lot

00:23:35 ◼   ► on what kind of uptake this gets,

00:23:38 ◼   ► and just a lot of the implementation details.

00:23:40 ◼   ► Two weeks ago, when we talked about reading App Store reviews

00:23:42 ◼   ► my position was, I almost never read them,

00:23:44 ◼   ► you don't really need to, I don't think many people do.

00:23:48 ◼   ► For apps that have sufficient star ratings,

00:23:50 ◼   ► they just look at the star rating average,

00:23:51 ◼   ► and then make a decision for the most part,

00:23:52 ◼   ► and there aren't a lot of people who read their review,

00:23:55 ◼   ► so it's not that big of a deal.

00:23:57 ◼   ► And of course, again, all these problems are shifted

00:24:00 ◼   ► and magnified or minimized based on

00:24:03 ◼   ► whether you have a lot of reviews or very few reviews,

00:24:05 ◼   ► but assuming you have a moderate to high amount,

00:24:08 ◼   ► these things all average out, so anyway,

00:24:12 ◼   ► it depends a lot on how many customers

00:24:14 ◼   ► are actually reading these things,

00:24:16 ◼   ► and then also how many developers will be responding.

00:24:19 ◼   ► If it's the kind of thing that's pretty rare,

00:24:21 ◼   ► that almost no developers end up doing

00:24:23 ◼   ► in any kind of reasonable quantity,

00:24:25 ◼   ► and that most customers don't end up expecting

00:24:28 ◼   ► or reading or seeing, then it's completely optional

00:24:31 ◼   ► whether you do it or not, and you probably don't need to,

00:24:33 ◼   ► because that's a lot of time and effort

00:24:35 ◼   ► for zero to one person to see.

00:24:38 ◼   ► But if it ends up being something that is important,

00:24:43 ◼   ► which again, it depends on implementation details,

00:24:45 ◼   ► there's a lot of questions, like where do we respond,

00:24:48 ◼   ► I assume we respond to these in iTunes Connect somewhere,

00:24:51 ◼   ► if so, that is a massive opportunity

00:24:54 ◼   ► for a third-party developer, if you need an idea

00:24:56 ◼   ► for your next Mac app or web service,

00:24:59 ◼   ► make that happen, make it so that you can scrape

00:25:02 ◼   ► all the reviews from all the different languages,

00:25:04 ◼   ► all the different country stores,

00:25:06 ◼   ► have some kind of built-in translation function

00:25:08 ◼   ► and give us a way to reply easily.

00:25:10 ◼   ► You will sell that to every iOS developer who cares.

00:25:13 ◼   ► You can sell that for like 10 bucks a month, easy.

00:25:15 ◼   ► Anyway, anybody who needs an idea, get on that.

00:25:18 ◼   ► If not, app figures, that's your next thing.

00:25:20 ◼   ► All right, so anyway, and a lot of the implementation

00:25:23 ◼   ► details matter, so for instance, is the customer notified

00:25:27 ◼   ► when you respond to their review?

00:25:28 ◼   ► That's a big question, 'cause a lot of these reviews,

00:25:32 ◼   ► I think, are kinda like hit and run,

00:25:35 ◼   ► they're not gonna actually come back and check

00:25:37 ◼   ► to see if you responded most of the time.

00:25:39 ◼   ► Again, if that's not done, if the customer's not notified

00:25:42 ◼   ► that you responded, preferably with your response

00:25:45 ◼   ► in the notification email or whatever,

00:25:47 ◼   ► then it's gonna be a lot less valuable for you to reply.

00:25:51 ◼   ► So again, this depends a lot on the details

00:25:53 ◼   ► that we don't know yet, but I think,

00:25:56 ◼   ► those are my two big questions is like,

00:25:58 ◼   ► will people see your response really en masse?

00:26:00 ◼   ► And then two, will the author of the review

00:26:05 ◼   ► see your response?

00:26:07 ◼   ► That will decide whether this is worth doing or not.

00:26:10 ◼   ► This could turn my advice into yes, go read your reviews

00:26:14 ◼   ► and respond in a reasonable amount of time

00:26:15 ◼   ► to things that deserve a response.

00:26:17 ◼   ► It's probably just gonna be a whole bunch

00:26:20 ◼   ► of form responses from, you mentioned it'll be developers

00:26:25 ◼   ► saying, oh, please email me.

00:26:27 ◼   ► It'll be big companies doing that.

00:26:29 ◼   ► It'll be the big companies where they say,

00:26:32 ◼   ► where every update, they say the changes

00:26:34 ◼   ► and the change log are bug fixes and improvements

00:26:36 ◼   ► to make your life better.

00:26:37 ◼   ► Look at our full review notes at Facebook.com/whatever.

00:26:41 ◼   ► You're gonna see Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,

00:26:44 ◼   ► they're gonna be responding to every single review

00:26:47 ◼   ► with some kind of useless form response.

00:26:49 ◼   ► But it's really up in the air whether people like us,

00:26:53 ◼   ► like smaller developers who will actually respond

00:26:55 ◼   ► in a human fashion and might actually give useful responses

00:26:58 ◼   ► other than please contact us privately,

00:27:00 ◼   ► that remains to be seen how that'll go.

00:27:03 ◼   ► And the value of this system and how much of a support

00:27:07 ◼   ► burden the system is will all depend

00:27:09 ◼   ► on those implementation details

00:27:11 ◼   ► and how many people actually read them.

00:27:14 ◼   ► - What I do like though is that it is,

00:27:15 ◼   ► I think I feel like it provides an opportunity

00:27:18 ◼   ► for a smaller developer to,

00:27:20 ◼   ► like one of the things that I,

00:27:23 ◼   ► when I was early on being independent,

00:27:26 ◼   ► I'd always write things in the third person

00:27:30 ◼   ► and talk as though I was a big company

00:27:33 ◼   ► because I thought that's like, yeah,

00:27:35 ◼   ► we've been working hard on this update.

00:27:37 ◼   ► It's like, no, I've been working hard on this update.

00:27:40 ◼   ► I'm the only one writing code.

00:27:41 ◼   ► It's just me and it's kind of dishonest

00:27:43 ◼   ► to project something otherwise.

00:27:45 ◼   ► And so I do like about this though is that

00:27:48 ◼   ► it does give an opportunity to feel,

00:27:51 ◼   ► it's like to show the world that personal level,

00:27:56 ◼   ► that it's like I can respond to something directly

00:27:59 ◼   ► and in a human authentic way.

00:28:01 ◼   ► And over the longterm, I found that since I stopped

00:28:04 ◼   ► trying to do that and I made things more personal,

00:28:07 ◼   ► I feel like that it has engendered a much higher,

00:28:10 ◼   ► affection's a weird word for something like this,

00:28:13 ◼   ► but it's that same kind of feeling of like people like me

00:28:16 ◼   ► and like my software because they like me.

00:28:19 ◼   ► And so I do like that it's gonna be something

00:28:20 ◼   ► that we can kind of react and be a bit more personal in.

00:28:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, it humanizes us.

00:28:25 ◼   ► And that will make people be less nasty.

00:28:28 ◼   ► - Sure, and I think honestly, that's another example

00:28:31 ◼   ► of something that I hadn't even really thought of,

00:28:32 ◼   ► but I wonder if too, if it'll improve the quality

00:28:37 ◼   ► of reviews that are left.

00:28:39 ◼   ► In the same, we always joke about,

00:28:40 ◼   ► oh, we never read our reviews, they're also awful and nasty.

00:28:42 ◼   ► But if customers who leave nasty reviews

00:28:45 ◼   ► start being responded to by humans and people,

00:28:50 ◼   ► they may be less inclined, at least for some people,

00:28:53 ◼   ► maybe less inclined to leave those reviews

00:28:55 ◼   ► than if they, if in their mind, they're just kind of,

00:28:58 ◼   ► it's a big megaphone that they can just shout at the world

00:29:02 ◼   ► and then run away from.

00:29:03 ◼   ► If it's actually like, they shout at the world

00:29:06 ◼   ► and then the person who they were shouting at

00:29:08 ◼   ► comes back and talks to them in a calm, collected way,

00:29:11 ◼   ► maybe they'll second guess that choice next time

00:29:15 ◼   ► and it'll improve the discord.

00:29:16 ◼   ► Maybe that's just, again, me just,

00:29:17 ◼   ► my hopeful wishful thinking, but you know, a man can dream.

00:29:21 ◼   ► - All right, and with that, we are out of time.

00:29:24 ◼   ► Thank you everybody for listening

00:29:26 ◼   ► and we'll talk to you next week.

00:29:28 ◼   ► - Bye.