Sort by ratings in App store

Question

Level 1

6 points

Sort by ratings in App store

As an often user of the App Store for the iPhone, I find it incredibly difficult (and maybe it's just me) and annoying that I can't sort by the highest rated in sequential order of applications either on the iPhone app or in iTunes..can someone tell me if I'm missing something here? Or maybe you agree??

iPhone OS 3.0

Posted on Jul 13, 2009 4:32 AM

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Answer 1

cludinsk

Level 1

91 points

Dec 6, 2009 8:23 PM in response to xpgurliexo

trying to sort through 50 applications that do the same thing, all with similiar names, would be 50 times easier with the ability to sort by rating. look at any other commerical site and join the present already.

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Answer 2

Oct 19, 2009 1:06 PM in response to xpgurliexo

Yep, you are right, we are pretty much stuck with the TOP Listings Apple makes for us, no old school, plain column list with the plain text and the wonderful sorting capability, but has it ever been in a different way? I believe it was only music that could be displayed like that. I might be wrong, I missed the bus of the early adopters when the app store just opened.

Good luck with your inquest for the sorting dream!

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Answer 3

Oct 6, 2013 2:33 PM in response to xpgurliexo

Yeah, I don't even think you can sort by price either. I mean, is that too hard to ask? Let me see what isn't free but cheap? And the problem of this topic, what I find most important - to search and find the best rated apps. This is why it is good to NOT rely on apple. Now, I'll be looking up ratings of mac apps on review websites, rather than the app store itself.

You used to be able to do it on iOS, couldn't you? I think they've even changed it there. I could swear, in the iOS 'sort by' field it had "relevance" "most popular" "highest price" "lowest price". Now its just "Name" or "Featured"

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Answer 4

Aug 24, 2009 3:42 PM in response to xpgurliexo

Hi everyone,

To begin with, i'm french and i ask you to apologize my poor english,

i got a problem with iTunes and Front Row. When i rate songs in iTunes, sometimes, the rated songs are from the same album so, the album gets an average rating. Thats the first thing thats bothering me. but its not a problem until i use front row.

i created an intelligent playlist like the usual playlist in iTunes: my best ratings. All the songs i rated are gathered in this playlist.

When i start using Front Row, when i go to the playlist, i seem to find other songs in it. Those are the songs from the albums that are automatically rated. So, i'm not only finding songs that i rated but the entire albums that are averagelly rated. This is very annoying when listenning to a playlist with Front Row.

It would be great if someone could help me on this.

Thank you very much for your time.

If i did not make myself clear, i'll try to explain.

Thanks

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Answer 5

Punter16

Level 1

13 points

Jan 5, 2010 2:11 PM in response to xpgurliexo

Yea this is incredibly annoying, it's gotten really difficult to find anything other than utter crap in the app store lately but it's not that there aren't good apps in the app store they're just buried under piles of crap that we don't have the tools to wade through.

My guess is that Apple purposely doesn't want people to be able to sort by rating because that would take too much of the control out of their hands as far as which apps appear atop the app store. Apple doesn't want the process to be democratic they want in firmly under their control because they want to be able to funnel users to certain apps. It provides another revenue stream for them because they can charge developers to have their apps "featured" near the top of app store. The app store needs a serious overhaul.

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Answer 6

Oct 19, 2009 12:27 PM in response to xpgurliexo

I agree, it is ridiculous you can't sort App Store items by rating! It's like Apple are living in the 20th century still, sometimes.

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Answer 7

Apr 8, 2017 12:03 PM in response to 1Apple0PC

I see a few flaws in your logic...

Apple should not care if an app gets ratings.
If humanity has bias and humans are doing the reviews, then your reviewers will have bias.
Apple's should not try to sway, move or direct it's users in any way. They provide a platform for sale and Apple should (should) stay out of the game of favorites. They could still provide steering by setting default views that show ratings as a function of time. Stars this week, this month, this year, all time... anything.

Apple seems to (wants to) believe Apple knows best. This perpetuates the belief by non Apple-ites that Apple is priggish and uncaring.

This kind of Big Brother knows best attitude lacks forward thinking.

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Answer 8

Mann

Level 1

45 points

Aug 18, 2013 5:52 PM in response to JLiRD808

I'm sure Apple says this is a feature not a problem.

OUTRAGEOUS AND USER-UNFRIENDLY!!!

If apple thinks it is innovative apple innovations will continue without my money.

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Answer 9

geza

Level 1

0 points

Feb 4, 2010 6:27 PM in response to xpgurliexo

Totally agree. It is a wonder why Apple does don't include simple things like sorting in App Store. They have all the info, e.g. ratings, price, categories, updated date, etc. Seems that they have only designed iTunes for music and there is no further development. If they want to influence our selection, they can always put in their staff rating/review, just like cnet.com.

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Answer 10

Feb 21, 2010 7:43 AM in response to xpgurliexo

Yeah, this is just crazy. The number of clicks and amount of time it takes me to find the highest rated apps in a densely populated type-of-app field is just insane when they could just present a sortable list.

In fact, I sat down at my computer to try and find an app for tracking labor contractions, found about 18 of them, clicked on a couple, then googled for ways to sort by rating, found this discussion, and here I am ranting on this thread instead of giving money to Apple. When I'm done ranting I'm not going to buy anything, I'm going to go do something else and come back someday when I'm mentally prepared to click through to 18 different apps, assuming my wife hasn't already gone into labor. Or maybe I'll just use a stopwatch.

Come on, Apple, you're losing sales here.

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Answer 11

Apr 3, 2010 11:15 PM in response to xpgurliexo

Today's #1 App:

"The Impossible Test"

Ratings +(Rounded; I know they add to 101%)+

42% - 1 Star
12% - 2 Star
12% - 3 Star
9% - 4 Star
26% - 5 Star

Now that's what I call the #1 app of the day, never mind that *over half* the users thought it was less than 3 stars. Apple obviously knows what's best for us, anyway.

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Answer 12

Jun 13, 2010 2:15 AM in response to xpgurliexo

If Apple would give us the option to filter by rating, many apps wouldn't stand much chance to get enough ratings anymore - so good Apps could be ignored because the were released much later and so don't show up cause people only pick the highest ratings. This applies especially to paid apps. The best thing i could think of are independent and unbiased reviewers who don't do anything else than review apps (Apple could easy afford them). They would give an initial review, in exchange they wouldn't have to pay for the apps at all. The reviewers would have to rotate to new ones from time to time, because humanity tends to get biased..

Additionally, reviews aren't worldwide. In consequence small countries have to switch the app store to usa to get enopugh reviews. Why not make an option to show reviews from other countries?

I like Apple products, but in all it's simpleness there is a growing complexity Apple doesn't seem to be able to handle (at least not now) - hope this changes..

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Answer 13

tmac238

Level 1

0 points

Nov 17, 2010 12:20 PM in response to xpgurliexo

I find it easier to browse apps from the iPhone/iPod since the App and the star ratings are shown in the list of apps... though the selection of apps in each traunch displayed is still controlled by Apple.

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Answer 14

jenfh

Level 1

0 points

Dec 19, 2010 3:34 AM in response to tmac238

Hi 🙂

A friend of mine thinks the world of apples, but running into issues like this makes me wonder if I made the right choice going for an iPhone. Oh well. Still a few days left to change my mind 😀

Power Search is already hidden where I never would have looked for it if it wasn't for google, now iTunes lacks the ability to sort results?

}-[

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Answer 15

Mar 18, 2011 9:48 PM in response to xpgurliexo

I'd like the ability to give my own ratings to Apps in iTunes similar to how I can rate music tracks. I've collected many free apps / games, many of which are absolute garbage (ad ware lite versions). Once I test the App and decided I do or don't like it it would be nice to rate it in my iTunes library so I don't forget I've already evaluated it.

It would also be nice to be able to edit info on Apps (since I cannot rate them.) THen I could rename App "This Game" to something like "01 This Game" where "01" is my 1 to 10 scale.

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