App Store Review Prompts

It looks like iOS App Store review prompts (i.e. the popups that say something to the effect of, "Like our app? Go rate it five stars!") are back in the public eye. Several people have been debating the pros and cons of this approach to garner reviews, and I'd like to give my two cents.

The whole discussion kicked off when Gruber linked to a moderately amusing Tumblr called Eff Your Review, which features screenshots of iOS apps badgering users to leave (ostensibly positive) app reviews. He added:

I’ve long considered a public campaign against this particular practice, wherein I’d encourage Daring Fireball readers, whenever they encounter these “Please rate this app” prompts, to go ahead and take the time to do it — but to rate the app with just one star and to leave a review along the lines of, “One star for annoying me with a prompt to review the app.”

Cabel Sasser thought this tactic might be a bit too far:

That said, ‘give apps that do this 1 star’ suggestion bummed me out — stoops to the level of ’1 star until you add X feature!’

And last night, Daniel Jalkut weighed in on the matter:

It’s smart to take it as given that something should be done to encourage users to leave positive ratings and reviews. That’s good business sense. But also take it as given that the farther you tread in the direction of badgering and disrespecting users, the more you chip away at the meaningful non-monetary benefits listed above.

Daniel is absolutely right. Developers have every incentive for using these prompts, and little immediate reason not to, unless swaths of users take Gruber's advice and leave one-star reviews about it.

Like any nuanced discussion, there is no single answer to the problem. Neither side – developer or customer – is necessarily in the right or wrong here. However, I think it could be helpful to lay down some guidelines for the people on either side of the equation. I can't speak for everyone, but I think the following principles would be a good starting point.

Rules for App Developers

• Let us opt out. If you simply must have an App Store review prompt in your app, be sure to give users the chance to say "no thanks". Don't pull the kind of bullshit where the only options are "yes" and "remind me later". That's scummy and you know it.

• Respect the users' wishes. If a customer chooses to opt out of leaving a review, your app had better not continue prompting them about it afterward. I can live with a one-time popup, but there are some apps that ignore opt-out requests and that is definitely not okay with me. It might even be a good idea to respect opt-outs across app updates, if possible. If I didn't want to review your app two updates ago, I'm no more likely to do so today.

• Remember that your app isn't the only one prompting for reviews. Users have to deal with this prompt in a wide variety of apps all the time, even multiple times a day depending on which apps they're using and which ones have updated recently. What you might see as a minor hiccup in the user's workflow is something they may see as a constant annoyance from all the apps they've bought.

Rules for Users

• Try to be a little more understanding. At the end of the day, most developers are simply trying to make a living from their work. In all likelihood, all but a few of them would rather leave you alone to enjoy their app, but let's face it: App Store ratings can make or break entire businesses. It's hard to blame them for encouraging people to help out a little.

• Go ahead and leave a review, even without being prompted. If a higher percentage of users would leave reviews of their own volition, developers wouldn't feel the need to badger them about it. If you have an app that you love and use all the time, do them a favor and give them a little boost on the App Store so they can continue providing you an awesome experience.

• Don't hand out 1-star reviews lightly. This is where I disagree with Gruber's suggestion. As annoying as these popups might be, I don't think it's fair to give an otherwise great app the lowest possible rating. For example, I absolutely love Day One but even it uses the review prompt. I wouldn't dream of giving it a one-star rating just for that, it's too cruel.

  I think people are often far too quick to hand out awful ratings just because of a single "missing" feature or other small annoyance. The one exception I would make in this case would be for apps that ignore opt-outs, or fail to provide them altogether.

* * *

While there is room for improvement on both sides of the aisle, my main wish is for each side to be courteous to the other. I don't think that's too much to ask for.

---

As a writer, my goal is to inspire others to be more creative and do their best work. If my writing has helped or inspired you in any way, please consider supporting this site with a modest donation or by signing up for the $3/month membership subscription.

"Imaginary Boogeymen"

This Salon piece about Obamacare was written back in mid-October, but it's a topic that's on my mind a lot these days because my wife and I are currently shopping around on the insurance exchange.

The backstory: journalist Eric Stern personally followed up with a group of people who had been guests on Sean Hannity's Fox News show, in order to fact-check them on their complaints regarding Obamacare. What he discovered shouldn't be surprising to anyone:

“I don’t doubt that these six individuals believe that Obamacare is a disaster; but none of them had even visited the insurance exchange. And some of them appear to have taken actions...based on a general pessimistic belief about Obamacare.”

Very revealing. Aside from what a bunch of Fox News talking heads have to say, why are people taking such a knee-jerk stance against something they haven't even researched?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't think Obamacare is perfect, or even close to the ideal solution, but it's a certainly a step in the right direction. What I'd really like to see the US implement during my lifetime is a single-payer system (or something similar).

'A Dream of Flying'

Written and narrated by Neil Gaiman, A Dream of Flying is an excellent short film about a girl who can fly. Rather than experiencing true freedom through her abilities though, she is put into an institution with other gifted children, where the adults try to "cure" them and force them to become "normal".

Stories like this, no matter how beautiful, always aggravate me a little inside. If such gifted individuals were ever discovered, I'd like to think that we would celebrate them rather than react out of fear. But maybe I'm just naïve.

How would you react?

'The iPad Setup of Chris Gonzales'

Shawn Blanc interviewed me for The Sweet Setup about the ways I use my iPad for work and play. I tried to convey just how versatile this device is, and how I have almost no need for an actual laptop to get my stuff done. I absolutely love my iPad.

If you're interested in the wallpaper seen in the screenshot at the top of the interview, feel free to grab it from this link.

'You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss'

This 2008 piece by Paul Graham still feels relevant today, maybe even more so:

“I suspect that working for oneself feels better to humans in much the same way that living in the wild must feel better to a wide-ranging predator like a lion. Life in a zoo is easier, but it isn’t the life they were designed for.”“

"Conversions Are Not People"

Andy Beaumont explains why he created the awesome Tab Closed; Didn't Read Tumblr:

“This kind of belief in numbers is exactly what got us into this mess. [...] Analytics will tell you that you got more “conversions”. Analytics will show you rising graphs and bigger numbers. You will show these to your boss or your client. They will falsely conclude that people love these modal overlays.

But they don’t. Nobody likes them. Conversions are not people.”

I couldn't agree more. The modal overlay advertisement is currently one of the most user-hostile behaviors on the web, often appearing and requiring dismissal before the user even has a chance to check out the content they clicked through for. Who the hell would willingly sign up for your lame marketing newsletter before they even know what you're about?

Almost nothing will make me leave a site faster than these ads do, and I'm not likely to ever return. How's that for your analytics?

'Instant Gratification'

Daniel Jalkut:

“No more waiting for permission to share your thoughts, arts, or inventions with the world. And no more excuses for holding back. Got something to give? Put it out there and see what sticks.”

The slow extinction of 'gatekeepers' – publishers, record labels, banks, book stores, et al – is one of my favorite things about the web these days. It's never been easier to make yourself heard around the entire world, and all it takes is the press of a button.

It's both terrifying and liberating at the same time.

Behind the Scenes of a Nine Inch Nails Tour

Nine Inch Nails allowed a Vevo video crew to come film a behind-the-scenes featurette about the stressful process of developing their Tension 2013 tour. It's just under fifteen minutes long and definitely worth checking out.

Rob Sheridan, creative director for NIN and the guy behind some of my favorite wallpapers, described what it was like to be filmed this way:

“These features are interesting (and sometimes hard for me to watch) because they’re very honest. There’s no makeup, no interview prepping, no re-shoots, these guys were in our faces while we were trying to work, catching us off guard and capturing moments that we sometimes would prefer not be filmed. We didn’t script or plan these features, these guys were annoying the hell out of us during production rehearsals - but in the end it’s nice to have a document, however personally uncomfortable, of the work we put into something like this.”

I wish more artists would allow these kinds of fly-on-the-wall glimpses into their creative process.

On Working from Home

A couple weeks ago, Shawn Blanc asked on Twitter,

“Do you work from home (remote or for yourself)? What’s the best thing about it? What’s the worst?”

I gave a quick reply then, but I think this a question that deserves a more detailed answer.

Now, I've only been doing the “work from home” thing for a few months now and I'm definitely not making a ton of money yet¹, but I feel like I'm starting to at least get a grasp on which things I like and dislike about the experience.

The funny thing I've noticed is that it seems like each pro is also its own con. I know that sounds silly, but if you check the responses to Shawn's tweet, a lot of other self-employed people feel the same way.

I'll explain myself a bit more in the sections below.

More Time with my Family

The upside: When I was doing the corporate stooge thing, I felt like I rarely got to see my wife and son during the work week. I would leave early in the morning, come back late in the evening, and maybe get a couple hours with them before bedtime. Then we'd try to make the best of our weekend time, but of course it just flew by like that and it was back to the grind. Wash, rinse, repeat.

But now, I'm just as much of a stay-at-home dad as I am a work-from-home guy. I get to set my own schedule, which means I get to wake up and have coffee and breakfast with Chelsea, then a little playtime with Brendon, before I sit down to get my work done.

This has had a profoundly positive effect on my relationships with the two of them, especially with Brendon. Now that I'm actually around more often, his attitude towards me has improved noticeably — to him, I'm no longer just the guy he used to see sometimes, but “Daddy”, and that means the world to me.

The downside: There is no such thing as an office (or basement) in my house, not even so much as a real desk. My “workspace” options are: the living room, the dining room table, bed, or somewhere outside like the front porch or back yard. And really, that's one of my favorite things about working at home, but there is nothing to truly separate me from the goings-on around the house.

Brendon is too young to understand that there are things I need to get done, and that it can't always be playtime whenever he wants. I can always lock myself in my bedroom and let Chelsea watch him, but he knows where I am and he'll sometimes just stand by the door and cry for me, which I have a hard time ignoring.

There are times when I can leave the house and work from a coffee shop, but I tend to stay home more often than not because we share a single car and my wife needs it to run errands.

More Freedom

The upside: Like I mentioned earlier, I'm able to set my own schedule. Since my work is all web-based and the internet never closes, I can work at any time I please. Maybe I'll write after breakfast, maybe I'll do it in the middle of the night after the others are asleep — the choice is entirely mine. I can also take breaks or get some house chores done whenever I want.

The downside: With such an open-ended schedule, I'm discovering just how hard it can be to stay focused on my work. I've written about focus before, but that was when Unretrofied was more of an after-hours project rather than my primary gig. Man, was I ever naïve.

No, working from home requires focus of a far higher order of magnitude. I no longer have a boss watching me like a hawk and micro-managing the things I do. I am completely responsible for myself, for better or for worse. If I succeed at writing something awesome, or if I fail (probably because I wasted time repeatedly checking my various inboxes), that's all on me.

There's a lot of pressure involved with that. It sort of feels like graduating from high school only to find out that my doctoral thesis is due tomorrow.

Another downside is that when I do manage to get in the zone and start being productive, it can be hard to draw the line on when to stop. There have been times that I've stayed up until 4am writing something when I should have long been asleep. Allowing myself to stop working on a half-finished project, and being okay with its incompleteness, is harder than I expected it would be.

Less Social Interaction

The upside: I realize it's somewhat fashionable these days for people to dub themselves introverts, but that is truly the way I feel. I don't want to sound like an asshole about it, but being around other people tends to exhaust me after a while.

It's so nice not having to deal with the kind of silly small-talk I had to endure daily at my corporate job. It was a call-center position and I was on the phone with chatty florists all day, so you can maybe imagine how much I began to hate it after five years.

The downside: Just because I tend to prefer solitude doesn't mean I don't want any interaction with the outside world. I'm at a point in my life where most of my friends are off starting their own families and having full-time jobs and everything else that comes with being an adult. I can't even remember the last time I hung out with someone other than my relatives, and even that is only on occasion.

This is somewhat alleviated by social media – in fact, I think I interact with my internet friends more than my real-life ones at this point – but it's not quite the same. I feel like Paul Rudd's character from I Love You, Man, as if I need to go on a bunch of man-dates to feel normal again. (I'm only half-kidding.)

* * *

Obviously, there was no way to fit all of this into a tweet. There's a lot of nuance in how I feel about working from home, and although there are some downsides I'm still trying to work through, I'm very glad for the experience and I hope to continue doing it as long as possible.

---

As a writer, my goal is to inspire others to be more creative and do their best work. If my writing has helped or inspired you in any way, please consider supporting this site with a modest donation or by signing up for the $3/month membership subscription.

---

1. I could not completely support even myself on the money I'm making, much less my wife and son. My wife's dance school is our primary source of income, with a little help from what I make writing on Tools & Toys, as well as from my membership subscribers. ↩

'What Screens Want'

Frank Chimero wrote a sprawling, wonderful essay that reflects on the web as we know it, concluding that it has become too impersonal, cold, and calculating:

“We used to have a map of a frontier that could be anything. The web isn’t young anymore, though. It’s settled. It’s been prospected and picked through. Increasingly, it feels like we decided to pave the wilderness, turn it into a suburb, and build a mall. And I hate this map of the web, because it only describes a fraction of what it is and what’s possible. We’ve taken an opportunity for connection and distorted it to commodify attention. That’s one of the sleaziest things you can do.”

This is one of those pieces that I recommend reading on the web and not with Instapaper or Pocket. Frank created a special page just for this essay, and it's too pretty not to be enjoyed in its intended state.

Squarespace's New iOS Apps

One of my longest-running complaints about Squarespace has been their crummy iOS app experience. Until yesterday, the app we were stuck using was something that only kind of worked back in the Squarespace 5 days, and when Squarespace 6 was unveiled during the summer of 2012, the app somehow got even less useful (or more broken, depending on how you look at it).

Now, a year-and-a-half and several pointless apps later, Squarespace has finally released a new pair of iOS apps that are actually useful to me:

• Squarespace Blog — Used for writing and publishing posts.

• Squarespace Metrics — Used for checking site visits and the like. (iPhone-only for now.)

The Metrics app is okay I suppose, but the real meat here is the Blog app. Since I primarily work from my iPad, publishing articles and links on Unretrofied has been an exercise in frustration until now. Since their iOS app was so horrendous before, I had actually begun using the Squarespace back-end from Safari to publish everything.

If you haven't tried doing this from iOS before, let me tell you right now: it's a terrible experience.

For example, you could only copy text into the text editor's Markdown "block" — it was nearly impossible to write anything there manually, and none of the text could be edited once pasted. Any fixes necessary had to be made in another app, then I would have to delete the entire Markdown block from the post, create a new block from scratch, and paste the updated text into it. Yeesh.

And don't even get me started on trying to use the little features like the Categories list and post-scheduling. Let's just say those things are definitely not touch-friendly.

With the new Blog app though (which I'm using to write this very post), the processes of publishing/updating articles, creating link-posts, editing URL slugs, choosing categories, and scheduling posts are all quite easy. I can finally ditch the stupid website back-end and focus more on the writing itself.

Of course, there are still things I'd like to see added to the app, namely TextExpander support and a built-in web browser (for gathering links and whatnot). They may never add these kinds of things, but at least the app works well enough in its current state.

The Sweet Setup

Two of my favorite websites for getting recommendations on great stuff are The Wirecutter and their sister site The Sweethome. Rather than focusing on the latest fads, they only concern themselves with finding the absolute best gear possible, the stuff that stands the test of time.

Today, I'm happy to say that a third site has entered this arena: The Sweet Setup, created by my buddy Shawn Blanc. It's not a site about gear, though — it's all about the best Mac and iOS apps in a wide variety of categories, as well as the, ahem, sweet setups of awesome people.

Just to give some examples, there are articles on the very best journaling app, their favorite alternative to Apple's Photo Stream, and the best general purpose weather app. These apps aren't necessarily new – especially not to us nerds – but that's exactly the point. Sometimes the most trusty apps are the ones with a little experience under their belts.

Head over here to get a brief tour of the site, then get to reading all the other articles. If nothing else, just take a few moments to really look at the site's design, because it's nothing short of gorgeous.

I'm really excited for Shawn, and congratulate him on the launch of what I think is the premier resource for app research. Go check it out.

'The Heist' One-Year Anniversary

Ben Haggerty — better known as the rapper Macklemore — reflects on the year following the release of his hit album, The Heist, and the insane amount of fame that came with it. I particularly dug this bit:

“Every song I’ve ever put out, I have believed in. But Same Love was different. It was a moment that was way bigger than us. Watching teenagers come up to me after shows, with tears in their eyes, gasping for breath in attempts to find the right words to explain to me that they came out to their family after hearing the song…that reaffirms everything. That. Right there. That is the reason why I do this. That is no publicity stunt. That is no calculated move. That is art affecting the quality of people’s lives, the way that other artists influence mine.”

This is one of those times where I wish I hadn't let such a great read linger in my Instapaper queue for so long.

Jony Ive Biography by Leander Kahney

Released just this morning, Jony Ive by Leander Kahney — editor of Cult of Mac — explores the early life and meteoric rise of Apple's famous product designer. It's not based on direct conversations with its subject in the way that Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs was, but it looks pretty interesting nonetheless.

Jony Ive is available from Amazon in both hardcover ($17) and Kindle ($12) formats, as well as from the iBooks Store ($12).

'Designing Great App Store Screenshots'

Dan Counsell of Realmac Software explains why it's so important for iOS app developers to use good screenshots:

“The simple fact is that a customer’s decision on whether they will download an app is mainly based on the icon, rating and screenshots. The name of the app and description [are] secondary, and most of the time not even taken into account. Potential customers look at these elements to try and work out if the app is worth their time and money, and this all happens in a matter of seconds.”

He goes on to give some excellent tips that may help them get a leg up on the competition. The bit about using all five screenshot slots is probably the easiest one to adhere to, and sadly there are developers out there too lazy to do even that much.

The Great Discontent's Interview with Merlin Mann

Here are two reasons I was super excited to read this interview:

1. I'm an unabashed Merlin Mann fanboy (Mannboy? Er...hmm.)
2. The Great Discontent is consistently one of my favorite sites to read, and was a big inspiration for my own interview series.

I just finished reading the interview, and it certainly didn't disappoint. I went back through afterward to find something I could blockquote here, but in true Merlin style, almost the entire thing is quotable so I'll just recommend that you go read it right now.

A Box of Otherworldly Notes

“Reddit user TramStopDan documented and shared his recent experience of unlocking and discovering the contents of a box which his friend found discarded on the street next to the trash. When he managed to open it, Dan found a mind-boggling collection of posters, illustrations, text, maps, technical drawings and personal belongings.”

Interesting story that takes a turn for the weird. Just goes to show that you never really know what kinds of curious things people will simply throw away.

Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling

There are a couple of animation studios that I consider to be the best in their field. One is Studio Ghibli, and the other is Pixar. So when Pixar's (former) Story Artist lays down some rules for great storytelling, people should pay attention.

Although I enjoyed the entire list, two rules in particular struck me as useful for any sort of creative work:

11. “Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.”

-and-

17. “No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.”

iOS 7 and Screenshot Status Bars

In some iOS app reviews – including my own – you may notice that the screenshots used throughout have clearly been taken at different times, with varying battery charges displayed between them. Not ideal.

A few days ago, Dr. Drang decided to take a crack at fixing these status bars so that they all match one another, not with a standalone app but with a clever Python script. Naturally, Federico Viticci started adapting the script to be used with the iOS app Pythonista so it would be possible to use it directly from within iOS rather than depending on a Mac app like Status Magic.

Now, Drang has posted the improved versions of both scripts for everyone to use. Disclaimer: before the iOS-only one can work, it requires that four status bar images be added to the OS via the hidden file system. Once it's set up though, it should theoretically work beautifully.

I'll be giving it a try myself soon, maybe next week since I'll be out of town again this weekend — not for a vacation this time though, but to assist my wife as she takes some of her Irish dance students to a competition in Illinois.

'Perfectly Unbalanced'

David T. Lewis reflects on work/life balance, and how it doesn't necessarily mean the same for creatives as it does for others.

“I had spent a lot of my 20’s trying to fight off these urges, now approaching 40 I can’t help but think that any – mild – success I have had comes out of this worldview. By embracing this idea I can stop apologizing for it, I can actually appreciate how lucky I am to be exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I want to do.”