“The system is so twisted that even Apple itself begs for these reviews from its own apps.”

A good post by John Gruber on Daring Fireball investigating why apps pester you with the annoying “enjoying this app?” windows and attendant semi-shady practices (choose 5 stars and you get sent to App Store, but choose anything less, and your review will get redirected to Mr. Dev Null). The answer? They don’t really have a choice: “[Steve Troughton-Smith:] Review prompts are the difference between a great app getting five positive reviews, and thousands of positive reviews. […]” You have to play the game as the game stands, and Apple controls the game. And in the game as it stands, apps need 5-star reviews to gain traction in the App Store, perhaps especially so for apps in crowded categories. And for most apps, the only way to achieve that is through prompting. But the right thing to do, for the user experience in the app, is never to prompt for reviews. I think it’s worth knowing about stuff like this for another reason. Absent understanding or institutional memory, any exception…