Loopy Pro: Create music, your way.
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Comments
You are saying you would post a 5-star review on an app or no review at all (even if there are issues). That's your view and not everyone needs to do the same.
Someone complained earlier that their admins delete anything posted against their apps on their site and ban such users.
I meant to say to post something like a 4-star review (anything less than 5-star) and mention the issues you are experiencing - not necessarily 1-star review - I don't have to tell you everything on how to post what, where, how many stars, etc - that's up to you as a grown up - and it's a given. Many apps have less than 4-star reviews and ratings and it means something. If everyone posts 5-star ratings praising every app (even if there are issues), NO dev would waste their time reading through so many positive reviews. 5-star reviews mostly get ignored by devs to save time from having to read dozens or hundreds or even thousands of such reviews. Devs are looking for reviews reporting issues to BETTER their apps and increase their SALES by beating the competing apps. Without such reviews, most apps would be too weak and below-average and wouldn't be what they are today.
Posting 5-star reviews on apps when there are issues is misleading the prospective buyers into making them believe there are no issues with the app. Are we not buying stuff on Amazon, Walmart, etc. by choosing the BEST ones based on user-reviews? If everyone posted 5-star positive reviews on Amazon, that would be a huge CHAOS for buyers - in fact there would be NO need for the Reviews section because they are all 5-star-positive. eCommerce sites like Amazon, AppStore implemented reviews/ratings for a better user experience/satisfaction and increase their bottomline but your notion to always post 5-star reviews would break user-confidence and result in collapsing those businesses - it also results in REVENUE LOSSES for the devs due to their weak/glitchy apps and the CHAOS caused by the misleading positive user reviews - contrary to your notion! You want to buy apps based on others' reviews but you don't want to help others with your "honest" review - or worse, mislead others with your incorrect, 5-star positive review - even when there are issues in an app? That would be a huge DISSERVICE! Reviews (good or bad) make apps stronger, bulletproof, profitable - and sustainable!
Rating an app low is just to grab the dev's attention and devs don't mind such negative reviews if they are honest. The more users report an issue, the higher it gets prioritized. Reviews are not set in stone. I always update my reviews to 5-star when the reported issues are resolved. It is unfair and counter-productive on our part to just leave our negative reviews on apps as-is and not update them after the devs resolved the reported issues.
Reviews and ratings exist on the AppStore for a reason. You bought it on the AppStore - you deal with it on the AppStore; posting your grievances on Audiobus forum or elsewhere over lengthy threads is as good as doing nothing for most apps and doesn't do much for the user-community because they most likely won't get noticed or resolved. Not all issues encountered get resolved magically on their own. Some devs are not users and don't realize how much their apps could be enhanced and polished until we mention them. You can take a look at my 160+ issues/suggestions I posted on Cubasis on Steinberg forum. How many apps exist without the essential features like tags, search, sort, filter, preset RATING with 1-5 stars (5 system banks)? Some devs don't understand the importance of features like preset RATING even after we explain to them. At the most, they implement preset Favorites feature which is just a single system bank that is not much of use when there are literally thousands of presets to be rated/starred by us, identifying varying degrees of sound quality.
Your praise of FLSM comes from your need to use its audio output as the final outcome and its UI may not matter to you. It doesn't mean the same applies to all other users. For people who want to use it in videos, its retro 2D UI with flashy, fluorescent, cheap colors is an eyesore! If it is an indie developer, we can understand but they are a huge corporation who created the COOL, eye-candy FL Studio desktop app which is a day-and-night difference compared to the mobile app's poor UI quality. Polishing the UI doesn't change any logic or functionality - it doesn't even cost much - and it can be done in virtually no time with a big bang because users see the UI - not the sophisticated logic the dev wrote using killer coding techniques behind their screens. UI is like the thumbnail of a video which dictates if a user will click on it - or not. You could create a KILLER video but if the thumbnail is mediocre, all your effort was for nothing because not many people would click on it. Fixing the UI is quick and will increase the sales instantly and it is one less thing to worry about after which the dev could just focus on implementing killer features using the incoming revenue funds.
You get banned from a piddly music app forum and so wish that a whole bunch of people with families lose their jobs, their investments, maybe their retirement savings, that millions of people who invested hundreds of dollars in the software go unsupported in the future ...
nice.
The same company that provided the only DAW I could afford back in the day, changed my music making life, and has been providing Free updates to me for twenty-one years.
I agree 21 years shows they’re hearts in it
I wish them only well.
Who said so? i just don‘t care for them at all. if they prosper - fine. if they get out of business - fine either. i just don‘t care for them...
@MobileMusic
“You are saying you would post a 5-star review on an app or no review at all (even if there are issues).”
I never said that. I think we are actually in agreement because we both interpreted each other’s comments to the extreme (1-star review vs 5-star review rather than somewhere in the middle) which is what you are saying above and maybe I could have clarified better in my post.
Regarding e-commerce reviews (Amazon etc) many of them are worthless if you read them carefully. If I buy something from Amazon I go more by the presentation of the product knowing that if it doesn’t turn out to be as presented I can simply return it. And if I watched YouTube videos based on thumbnails I would avoid most of them because the thumbnails are often just dumb. Again, I choose what to watch based on the what the content appears to be and will bail on it pretty quickly if it’s not reasonably well done and interesting.
“ Your praise of FLSM comes from your need to use its audio output as the final outcome and its UI may not matter to you.”
Actually no. My praise comes from the overall feature set and workflow. The UI matters a great deal to me and I find the FLSM UI does not get in my way as that of other DAW’s do. Of course YMMV, we are all wired differently.
As far as the colors go, they don’t bother me one bit and they can be changed. I honestly would not term them “flashy, fluorescent, cheap”. Again, YMMV.
I have been using FLSM quite a bit over the past couple of days and the workflow in general is pretty good. Sure, I’d like to see some tweaks but there are no roadblocks or dealbreakers as far as I’m concerned. I understand there is an update in the works. We’ll see what that brings.
As an aside regarding forums, I have never been banned from the IL forum (or any forum) even though I posted some fairly harsh criticism there several years ago. I have seen posts on both the IL and Cubasis forums as well as this one that come across as simply childish, rude and contribute nothing of substance to the conversation. There’s no need for that. If those people get banned I think it’s understandable.
Giving them bad reviews/ratings on the app store probably isn't going to get much through to them. Look at the reviews they've already got. In the US store their average is 3.5 from a whole 52 ratings. The majority of negative reviews are completely uninformative. You aren't going to sink their ratings by much more in the US store and your effort would most likely be better aimed at whatever communication channel you have directly to the company/developer.
I don't think I've ever had a negative review on the app store that gave me enough context to fix an issue. I've had several communications with users by email where I was able to ask them questions and in the end actually help solve a problem either they were having or I had in my plugin.
Reviews on the AppStore are not worthless - most of them are honest and useful. Reviews give visual feedback to buyers.
On Amazon, products get "Amazon Recommended", "Best Seller" honor badges based on user reviews on their platform - not from reviews posted on other forums.
YT is a profit-oriented marketing platform - that's all. YT likely will not recommend or list videos in top of search results that people are not clicking on (when they try to market the video freely when it is posted - called Impressions) or not watching through at least more than 50% of the video length because they have a TON of other videos to promote (and make them more $$) that do attract and retain users on their platform LONGER, making them watch MORE videos so they could serve more ADs. Chances of finding badly-performing videos to watch (clicks + retention + other engagements) are BLEAK. Videos still need to deliver on the promise made by the thumbnail and title without beating around the bush, retain audience and not get abandoned - to get recommended/suggested in future searches/suggestions. If users are not even clicking on a video because of a lousy thumbnail (compared to other competing videos), there is no question of watching it or gaining YT's recommendation because it has not even passed that first hurdle of receiving clicks - leave alone watching the video and retaining the user on the platform longer to get recommended/suggested in future.
I'm a UI/UX Designer and I know precisely what I'm talking. FL Studio desktop app would not have become so successful if it looked retro and flashy like the Mobile app. Why would they waste their money on creating a killer desktop UI (using vector-based UI/graphics to support up to 8K resolutions) if its functionality was good enough?
I was addressing your wrong notion saying, "Negative ratings can cause loss of sales which could shut down the app entirely"
Actually, the opposite is true. Posting incorrect, positive ratings (even when there are issues) will literally kill an app. Sure, you can also talk about the good things the app has. Reviews actually make an app stronger, bulletproof, profitable and sustainable - and should be posted on the AppStore for a visual feedback (I posted the 160+ issues/suggestions on Cubasis forum because it was too long). Reviews/Ratings can be revised anytime and users posting less than 5-star reviews can be contacted to update their reviews based on issues fixed. If you are not going to use the Reviews section on the AppStore when there are issues, what is the purpose of that section?
Maybe a few here and there. Not all negative reviews are wrong and most of them are useful and informative to buyers.
If the majority of the bad reviews are completely uninformative as you say, IL could always contact and request those users to provide more info or update the reviews based on workarounds/resolutions. As a developer, you are able to Respond to reviews and offer the exact same solutions right on the same AppStore platform - communicating back and forth - that would also be useful to other users who may encounter the same or similar issues and also reduce your number of support headaches.
It is not anybody's intent to sink an app's sales through less than 5-star reviews but to draw dev's attention to issues and give a visual feedback to other buyers (right on the same platform before they make a purchase decision) instead of expecting other buyers to scour the internet forums to read reviews and any issues. You were glad to read reviews and ratings of apps right on the AppStore to find out what issues/shortcomings they have before you purchased many apps. Reviews on the AppStore help build up the app's data/analytics right on the AppStore platform and there is no need to reinvent another wheel separately elsewhere for it that does not get aggregated into the AppStore's data in any way.
Reviews are part of the game. Developers should not get offended by less than 5-star reviews. Instead, they should take that as a challenge and use it as a cheap opportunity to make their apps stronger by resolving reported issues - because someone tested your apps (for free) and bothered to spend their own time to report the issues encountered. It also reflects that the developer is responsive, committed, dedicated and takes his apps seriously - not just the money! There is nothing to get offended to use the reviews AppStore is providing to buyers and sellers right on the same platform and it is the right way.
If you are not going to use the Reviews section on the AppStore when there are issues, what is the purpose of that section and Ratings 1-4? Sure you can post issues on IL's forum (just one more channel - as long as you don't get banned, as stated by someone here) but IL devs are not scouring the internet and trolling on other forums to find out and read reviews/issues posted by others so they can fix them - IL would rather read and respond to AppStore Reviews and resolve issues reported over there.
Users could just tap the 5-star Rating if they are happy with the app - to help the dev. If they have time, they could optionally write a glowing Review stating all the good things they enjoyed in the cool app. However, it is the user's responsibility to also "write" a Review and mention the issues encountered along with steps to reproduce them - if their Rating is less than 5-star (otherwise, the dev would have no clue what to resolve) and also update the review/rating after the issues are resolved. If the user still wants to post their reviews on the internet as well, that's fine too but the minimum they should do, first, is to post the review on the AppStore.
Unless something has changed that I'm not aware of, the developer is never allowed to contact customers.
The developer response on the App Store is very limited. It is limited in length and Apple has to approve every response. It usually takes two or three days for them to approve the response. By that time, the customer has moved on and never returns to look at the reply. Over all the time I've had apps on the App Store I've only had one user come back and change a review after I responded to them to clear up some confusion they had.
There's no back and forth communication afforded by the App Store review system. If the developer has any sort of contact info you can get, it is always going to be better to try and solve issues by directly contacting them.
A sampling of the one star reviews in the US are things like:
"I want my money back. I made better music on garage band."
"wow. i can't even open the app."
"Do not like the new version. The old version was a masterpiece!!!"
Those may all actually be true and I'm not trying to say they aren't, but how are you supposed to reply to those in a couple of sentences to attempt to get more context other than to ask them to please contact you directly?
I personally don't bother to read any reviews when I'm looking to buy something on the App Store any more because they are simply unreliable. If you are in a country that has a smaller population, looking at the average rating won't even do you any good for most apps because there are only one or two at most. The percentage of users that leave ratings is tiny. The percentage of users that leave reviews is incredibly small.
It doesn't have anything to do with taking offense or anything like that. It's simply that the information you can gain from the App Store review system is very limited. I'm personally much happier to have someone yell at me directly via my email contact because then I will usually get a response from them if I write back and ask for more info. This just doesn't happen on the App Store.
I'd say there isn't any purpose at all for the reviews or ratings on the App Store for any rating 1-5. Certainly, the ratings without a review are pretty meaningless and would probably be better served as a positive/negative type score at best.
For me personally, it certainly is fun to read good reviews and see that people are enjoying the app. That's a big part of the fun for me. I appreciate it when people take the time to leave a review. But if you have a problem, it's going to be much better and faster for you to contact me directly.
The user can't really write a long enough review to give the information a dev needs to fix an issue. Version numbers, device, OS, host, what went wrong, etc. They don't have that much space.
Bunches of negative reviews I see for apps are "this version broke my ___." But, the version is now two major releases behind. Does the user that leaves that sort of review have the responsibility to go update it with each version release? The dev could always reset the reviews with each release, but that would probably piss off people who left bad reviews and it would definitely make it look like the app didn't have any users.
If an app is a scam of some sort, then yes, definitely leave a rating and review that's appropriate and is a warning to others. It would even make sense to me to leave a review that was a warning to people to not update to a certain broken version. But if you want to get to the dev to point out problems, it's almost certainly going to be better to communicate to them directly. If the dev doesn't respond to reasonable questions and feedback, then yeah, bomb them with 1-star reviews stating that they don't communicate about issues and don't care enough to fix them.
I'm not trying to dissuade anyone from leaving reviews or ratings of any sort. I'm really just trying to point out that the App Store sucks as a platform to communicate with devs.
@NeonSilicon “I'm really just trying to point out that the App Store sucks as a platform to communicate with devs“
Exactly! And that’s really not the review sections purpose anyway IMHO. I have no expectation that a dev will reply to a review and that’s based on experience. Most app listings have contact info for the dev. That’s typically where I’ll start if I have an issue with an app. I almost always get a reply that way and if I don’t, it’s not unusual to see an updated app in a day or so.
It's not a contact-user form nor Apple provides devs with users' email addresses - you just have to post a Developer Response (you prolly already know this) with a request to reconsider the user's rating if it is less than 5-star or posted without a review. User gets a notification and most of them are invested and interested in the apps they purchased and bothered to rate/review and most likely will be obligated to revise their rating or post a review stating what's wrong - lacking features, bugs, UI issues, etc. Auxy and some other other devs I know have knocked out so many negative ratings (including mine) this way by just posting responses and resolving reported issues.
Dev resolves reported issues and posts another response. User gets a notification, verifies changes and updates rating/review... It's not a back-n-forth conversation thread - user has a box and dev has a box and they both keep updating/overwriting the same box (it's dumb/simple but it works as they both receive notifications).
Those who don't respond - well, there are always collateral damages in any field. Even if we post the BEST video on YT (like no other in the world), there are always thumb-downs from some viewers (who have nothing better to do). It's an online, anonymous world and such behaviors are expected. We cannot please everyone but such users are a very tiny fraction.
Apple is weak on the web side, as we know. Unlike PlayStore, on the web AppStore, there are no options to search for an app (Google is your friend) or post a rating/review (iOS device is the only way) and there was NO Login link on Apple.com until recently (google was your friend, again)! If you don't see adequate communication features on the AppStore, request Apple to add them. Request Apple to add ability to -
For a trillion dollar company and who understands their competitors would eat their lunch if they don't act, they would listen to useful feature requests from devs and users. There is a reason why they have a comprehensive feedback/bug reporting system -
https://developer.apple.com/bug-reporting
The issue is - the AppStore is probably the ONLY eCommerce platform that is not being used the way it is meant to be used as far as ratings/reviews are concerned as devs/users take communications, ratings, reviews outside the AppStore that don't aggregate into or reflect on the app in the AppStore nor help other users having similar issues with the app. I'm not saying we should not post app reviews on other forums and sites (DO do it) but post on "AppStore FIRST" as that is the central reference location for all-things-Apps where the ratings/reviews should be aggregated for the BIG picture!
A vast majority of human population is tech-illiterate; within that, music enthusiasts are a tiny, tiny niche. When reviews get scattered all over the internet but not on the AppStore, it gets convoluted and becomes inaccurate. Barring a very few devs, not every iOS music app dev is trolling on AB or other forums. Also, the 1 dozen+ musicians who I communicated with personally in the last few years who use iOS apps like GB, Cubasis, ZenBeats, GeoShred, Animoog, FLSM, etc. have never even heard there is something called AB forum - not a single one of them! And none of them were interested in checking it out. That's how un-nerdy / un-savvy most users are.
After resolving all the reported issues by a user, update your response with a summary of issues resolved to help other users with similar issues.
That's a vague statement saying all reviews are unreliable. I read reviews (mostly < 5-star ones) on any eCommerce platform during my research phase itself and comparing them to competing products to learn what issues it has so even if I buy the app/item, I know how to deal with them. They do help immensely.
See above. The reason is - "AppStore is not being used the way it is meant to be used" as communications, ratings, reviews are readily and quickly taken outside the store instead of working with the AppStore and make it work.
Request Apple to add features that are lacking on their store to help you with this. Apple offered devs a beautiful canvas, a marketing platform and an eCommerce platform so devs could laser-focus on their app development without having to worry about owing a website, marketing campaigns, payment gateways, etc. Why would they not listen to requests for enhancements that would help devs/users better their work/workflow and crush other platforms?
Now you are questioning the competence and decades of experience of thousands of architects, analysts, engineers, developers, marketers, etc. who know about business and commerce better than anyone and who designed Ratings and Reviews system on several multi-billion-dollar eCommerce platforms that are working great for years in customer-acquisition, user-satisfaction and revenue generation - saying they are meaningless and have no purpose and a positive/negative type score would be better. I disagree because minimalistic designs like this are a recipe for disaster.
In an app with thousands of presets, would you prefer a Favorites toggle feature or a 1-5 star multi Ratings feature? A vast majority of devs have not understood the usefulness of Rating feature - even after suggesting them (they simply dish out a single Favorites feature that is not as useful as Rating feature).
Of course, when we release a new app or version, it feels good as a passionate DEV to know users are using it, enjoying it and admiring it! However, I would focus more on less than 5-star ratings in the best interests of the app.
There is enough space - I've added very lengthy reviews on some apps - (but it was a pain posting it using an iPad, composing a draft on the desktop, emailing it myself, copy/paste into AppStore Review box on the iPad) but all users are not likely to know what basic info to furnish in order to reproduce the issue. No reproduction of issue - no resolution! Better yet, request Apple to add more space, columns with dropdowns for version number, device, OS, host, etc. in the Review form.
Request Apple to make their web AppStore interactive so it is possible to search for apps, easier to post ratings/reviews and respond using desktop browsers than a tiny iOS device screen covered 50% by the soft keyboard which takes forever.
Follow up with the user with a response to update their rating/review based on the current version and fixes. They will most likely feel obligated to update the rating/review - just for asking.
The above dropdown parameters can also be used by devs to optionally and OPTIMALLY reset such ratings/reviews when they release a new version (if Apple provides the option). For instance - while releasing a new version -
A plethora of BIG DATA is all there right in the AppStore but not being used properly or not used at all - to automate things to make our lives easy - even after a decade!
Taking communication outside the AppStore would not be useful for others who may encounter the same or similar issues and it would not aggregate app's ratings on the AppStore as mentioned above. AppStore should be the central reference location for apps, ratings, reviews and more.
Request Apple with your enhancement requests. Web/mobile applications are very easy to enhance by adding more columns, features, etc. to already existing functioning forms with a few lines of code and for a trillion dollar company, those should be trivial tasks with minimal effort getting them a BIG BANG, quickly.
Utilize all the marketing features Apple offers such as, Developer Response, "Rate this App" popup inside the app (like a "Subscribe to Newsletter" popup on websites) and users are most likely to rate it right away - without leaving the app. The dialog then hints the user with an option to leave a Review on the AppStore.
The point I was making about the app store communication and length was that the developer has limited length. The last response I tried with a user in Spain simply cutoff the section of my response talking to them about using a limiter at the end of their chain while experimenting. It was not a long response. Really good form from Apple if you ask me.
My main point was timeliness. You cannot have an interaction with a customer that takes 3 days because of an intervening third party (Apple in this case). This is simply untenable.
Your perception of the interaction between Apple and developers does not align with my experience. My experience is that to third party devs Apple is an infinite void. You can choose to caste your pennies in to that void if you want, just don't expect a response. I've communicated with Apple as a developer for more than 30 yea
omg! That was so incredibly funny!
Response got truncated because it was "165 characters too long".
I thought you did it on purpose to be funny.
There will be a slicer in the next FLSM update.
🤣
If only I had actually been that smart. The rest of what I wrote doesn't really make any difference anyway -- best to leave the funny version.