reviews in iTunes app store is real of fake?

Question

Level 1

3 points

reviews in iTunes app store is real of fake?

Before download or purchase a app, the first thing I always do is to read reviews. I found most people write reviews in a positive way. But I am a person who is little bit picky for apps, so I am willing to hear what the minority says. For example, one top-rated app I recently used, it got like 20+ 5-stars only 1 3-stars for the latest version. I am very interested to see the 3-stars review. But I can't. I scrolled down, but iTunes didn't show that review. After using the app for 2 days. I decided to write a review. I also rated this app 3-stars. But after I posting my review. I refresh the page, it disappeared.

So now i am skeptical for the rating system. is it possible some reviews are fake? or apple intend to hide the negative reviews in order to gain more downloads?

Why apple store not let as filtrate review(like what is able to do on Amazon.com. when we click 4 stars, the review page only shows 4 stars reviews)?

OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

Posted on Jul 20, 2015 12:35 PM

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Answer 1

TheeCPA

Level 1

11 points

Jan 5, 2017 6:58 PM in response to kyle.sheng

I'll preface this with the fact that I'm just a user, but my impression is that some apps don't post any bad reviews. Lose it, the diet app, recently started trying to get people who already purchased the app once to buy it again or put up with tons of advertisements. I posted a negative review and it never showed up. I saw other negative reviews from other users. Now all the bad reviews have mysteriously disappeared. So it looks like app developers can manipulate the reviews.

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Answer 2

badger88

Level 1

13 points

Apr 22, 2017 4:46 PM in response to TheeCPA

You are correct about someone having the ability to selectively display reviews. I have NEVER been able to successfully post a review even when it is positive, brief, and polite. It seems I am blocked from posting apple app reviews. I notice that the really bad apps, the easily spotted ones that are stolen from other lame app sellers, get high ratings when they should have been removed from app store long ago. Honset reviews, especially negative ones, seem to get supressed.

Only reason I can think of, that makes sense at the moment, for me being blocked from posting reviews: I choose not to share analytics info with apple. Perhaps blocking us from posting app reviews is apple's way of retaliating when people try to guard their personal safety. And speaking of privacy, see if apple still uses mzstatic with itunes. If so, trace mzstatic and see where you end up. (Oops, I don't think i was supposed to mention that.)

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Answer 3

King_Penguin

Level 10

334,138 points

Jul 20, 2015 12:59 PM in response to kyle.sheng

Reviews are generally real, though some may not be. Some people may also only rate an app and not leave a review.

For reviews that you write : Write a review in the iTunes Store - Apple Support

Your review might need to be approved before it's published, so it might not appear immediately.

You can sort reviews by most favourable, most critical, most helpful or most recent. If you think that there should be more options for how to view them then you can leave feedback for Apple via this page (these are user-to-user forums) : http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

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