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Anyone have any market data that would indicate the ratio of reviews to downloads in the iPhone App Store? Does the ratio of reviews to downloads change significantly if an app is free or paid?

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4 Answers

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There is no official number released for your question but... Keeping that in mind you can sometimes make a good "guesstimate" about the ratio. You need to follow the mobile app market as a whole. Once in a while a big name would say something like "We have 10million downloads up to date" or something like that.

The short answer would be that the ratio is around 180-200:1

Again it depends on the app, whether it is paid or free and a number of other factors.

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+1. I'd add also that the ratio depends really much on whether the app explicitly pushes users to write reviews (for example using appIrater), or not. If Kirk is trying to guess the amount of sales, it's better to use Xyologic, they can under/overestimate sales by even a factor of 10, but it's still better than what you could guess by just counting the reviews. AppCod.es is also good for competitor tracking. – Merlin Feb 20 '12 at 10:40
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Apple only prompts users to leave a review when the app is removed. Not the best time to ask for a favourable review. Other apps prompt users based on usage in their apps. Since there is no "Norm" It's hard to tell.

A way to try and work it out would be to look at the game center for a popular app and see number of "players" (users). then look at reviews in the app store. This would give you some kind of ratio.

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i think in iOS5 the phone no longer asks users to rate the app after it was removed. I guess they noticed that it caused plenty of bad reviews. – Merlin Feb 20 '12 at 10:34
yeah ... looks like it :) – Sunil Feb 21 '12 at 4:54
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The review system is utterly flawed and Apple doesn't care.

  1. Apple prompts at uninstallation time of an App. What more unfavorable event could one choose to ask for customer feedback? Expect a vast majority of negative reviews.

  2. If you read loads of raving reviews, expect them to be staged. Companies hire "social media reputation services" which take care of that. Reviews are pointless but important.

  3. Devs have no chance to comment reviews. Often, devs could have helped users which downrate just because of misunderstandings. However, as there is no communication system, you are doomed. It is so frustrating.

The Apple Appstore is the very worst that could ever happen to devs. Stay clear of it if you can.

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1. is no longer 2. sometimes they are staged (you can see, that all the reviews happened in the short span of time, and before that there was nothing, or just bad reviews), but not all of them! I've got two 4,5starred apps with natural, honest reviews, and at least one time I got a comment from an unhappy user who said that I was a cheat, and that I paid for reviews. It took me a year to get the 15 reviews... So please, please - don't call people cheats unless you have a solid reason to do so! – Merlin Feb 20 '12 at 10:34
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Some apps include rating prompts from appirater or similar. These prompts can significantly increase the rating count hence the ratio of ratings to downloads can vary quite a bit.

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