Rate App

Solar2D iOS
#1

The last forum posts I have seen regarding ‘Rate My App’ code, are as old as Nov 2012.  Back then the discussion was there was an issue with IOS 7 and native ‘rate’ code and also possibly a bug with Corona’s ‘rate app’ code.  There was no clear solution that I saw.

Can anyone tell me if the native popup for rate app is yet to go directly to ‘review page’, or does it go just to the app page?  

Is that for older iOS versions or just IOS7?

Can anyone share how they are presently getting user to go directly to the ‘review page’ for their app, to post a review or rate the app?

Thanks much!

#2

Hey, good point. It seems to go the app page at least on iOS7 still. Maybe that’s one reason why our app has so few reviews compared to Google Play. More or less the same volume. 

And we’re using this method:

local rateOptions = {} if self.market == "apple" then rateOptions.iOSAppId = self.appID end native.showPopup( "appStore", rateOptions )

Jyrki

#3

That’s how I’m doing it as well.  I’d love a way to send them straight to the review page but haven’t come up with anything either.  Incidentally is anyone else tracking how often users hit the ‘Rate’ button?  I’m using Flurry to track that in one of my apps and the numbers there are orders of magnitude different from the number of ratings in the App Store.

#4

I use this to open Review directly:

local yourAppID = "883372461"         local storeReviewURL = "http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewContentsUserReviews?pageNumber=0&sortOrdering=1&type=&mt=8&id=" .. yourAppID system.openURL(storeReviewURL)

Unfortunately, it’s not a popup that would keep the user in the app.

#5

This is a long outstanding issue with Corona’s native.showPopup() dialog.

Case 31388

Actually the call should be native.showPopup(“rateApp”, rateOptions), however I’m very disappointed to see that they have removed “rateApp” as an option from the documentation now instead of fixing the problem.

The review URL that @exevio posted is a fully valid URL that is approved by Apple. It’s not a hack. When they accidentally disabled this in iOS7 I reported it to Apple, and they contacted me to test if it worked with every beta until it was fixed (although it took them until iOS7.1 to fix it completely).  The same thing happened again in iOS8. I quickly reported it to Apple in beta 1 and they again asked me to check this functionality after every beta, and it was fixed in beta5. 

TL;DR

"http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewContentsUserReviews?mt=8&id="..YOUR\_APP\_ID

Apple acknowledge the rate URL above as a valid way to access the App Store’s review page for an app. I urge CoronaLabs to re-instate the “rateApp” option and internally issue a call to the URL for iOS apps.

Note:

The type=, sortOrdering= and pageNumber= arguments are NOP’s on device as of iOS 7 ( == have no effect ). Although type=Purple+Software is necessary if you want to have compatibility with iTunes on the desktop when using Corona Simulator.

#6

[quote name=“ingemar” post=“263527” timestamp=“1409932285”]I urge CoronaLabs to re-instate the “rateApp” option and internally issue a call to the URL for iOS apps.[/quote] +1. The fact that certain abilities disappear because it’s easier to get rid of things rather than fix them is very disappointing. I too would like to see the “rateApp” option resurrected. Thank you.

#7

Geez, I thought that CoronaLabs had just silently changed their “rateApp” to “appStore” identifier at some point of time. I used the URL above also initially, but thought that going the native.showPopup way would be the “proper” way to do it. Bummer! 

Point being that pointing users to the app page causes them to either 1) get lost, or 2) forget the whole darn thing. As said, we get practically no reviews currently from iOS.

#8

I’d assume the best way to handle this is if CoronaLabs could use StoreKit to open the review page so that the popup would occur within the app instead of leaving it. However I’m not sure if that would have any other implications.

The URL above is still a bare minimum in my opinion.

#9

The URL gets them one step closer at least.  The fewer barriers there are the better.  Having it occur within the app would be ideal though.  Especially if there were feedback if the event was successfully completed.

#10

If “rateApp” has been deprecated, then what is the best way to link to Google Play and Amazon Appstore for reviews now?

#11

You still call native.showPopup() but in appStore mode:

http://docs.coronalabs.com/api/library/native/showPopup.html#appstore

This will load the app’s store page and there should be a link to the Rate the app from there.

Rob

#12

Rob - unnecessary steps reduces the conversion rate. It may seems like a trivial thing for a user to do, but in reality there is a significant drop-off as non-technical users simply don’t realize they need to perform that extra step.

#13

Below is the code I use for Apple and Google stores.

Notes:

  1. On the Google Play Store, the “Write a Review” button appears as soon as you open the specified URL, so no issues there.

  2. This code is tested on all iOS versions except 8. EDIT: Tested the Purple+Software URL (mentioned in point 4 below) on iOS 8 and it works well.

  3. In iOS 7.0.X, there is a limitation because of which we cannot land on the review page directly. The _ itms-apps _ URL is used to circumvent this problem. In this case, the user will have to manually navigate to the review page (haven’t found a better workaround so far).

  4. For all other iOS versions, the _ Purple+Software _ URL will take the user directly to the review page. This is what we want.

    local deviceType = system.getInfo ( “platformName” ) local deviceVersion = system.getInfo ( “platformVersion” ) local appleAppID = “XXXXXXXXX” local googleAppID = “XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX” local urlPrefix = “http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewContentsUserReviews?id=” local urlSuffix = “&pageNumber=0&sortOrdering=2&type=Purple+Software&mt=8” if deviceType == “iPhone OS” then if string.find ( deviceVersion, “7.0” ) then system.openURL ( “itms-apps://itunes.apple.com/app/id” … appleAppID ) else system.openURL ( urlPrefix … appleAppID … urlSuffix ) end elseif deviceType == “Android” then system.openURL ( “https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=” … googleAppID ) end

#14

Hey, good point. It seems to go the app page at least on iOS7 still. Maybe that’s one reason why our app has so few reviews compared to Google Play. More or less the same volume. 

And we’re using this method:

local rateOptions = {} if self.market == "apple" then rateOptions.iOSAppId = self.appID end native.showPopup( "appStore", rateOptions )

Jyrki

#15

That’s how I’m doing it as well.  I’d love a way to send them straight to the review page but haven’t come up with anything either.  Incidentally is anyone else tracking how often users hit the ‘Rate’ button?  I’m using Flurry to track that in one of my apps and the numbers there are orders of magnitude different from the number of ratings in the App Store.

#16

I use this to open Review directly:

local yourAppID = "883372461"         local storeReviewURL = "http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewContentsUserReviews?pageNumber=0&sortOrdering=1&type=&mt=8&id=" .. yourAppID system.openURL(storeReviewURL)

Unfortunately, it’s not a popup that would keep the user in the app.

#17

This is a long outstanding issue with Corona’s native.showPopup() dialog.

Case 31388

Actually the call should be native.showPopup(“rateApp”, rateOptions), however I’m very disappointed to see that they have removed “rateApp” as an option from the documentation now instead of fixing the problem.

The review URL that @exevio posted is a fully valid URL that is approved by Apple. It’s not a hack. When they accidentally disabled this in iOS7 I reported it to Apple, and they contacted me to test if it worked with every beta until it was fixed (although it took them until iOS7.1 to fix it completely).  The same thing happened again in iOS8. I quickly reported it to Apple in beta 1 and they again asked me to check this functionality after every beta, and it was fixed in beta5. 

TL;DR

"http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewContentsUserReviews?mt=8&id="..YOUR\_APP\_ID

Apple acknowledge the rate URL above as a valid way to access the App Store’s review page for an app. I urge CoronaLabs to re-instate the “rateApp” option and internally issue a call to the URL for iOS apps.

Note:

The type=, sortOrdering= and pageNumber= arguments are NOP’s on device as of iOS 7 ( == have no effect ). Although type=Purple+Software is necessary if you want to have compatibility with iTunes on the desktop when using Corona Simulator.

#18

[quote name=“ingemar” post=“263527” timestamp=“1409932285”]I urge CoronaLabs to re-instate the “rateApp” option and internally issue a call to the URL for iOS apps.[/quote] +1. The fact that certain abilities disappear because it’s easier to get rid of things rather than fix them is very disappointing. I too would like to see the “rateApp” option resurrected. Thank you.

#19

Geez, I thought that CoronaLabs had just silently changed their “rateApp” to “appStore” identifier at some point of time. I used the URL above also initially, but thought that going the native.showPopup way would be the “proper” way to do it. Bummer! 

Point being that pointing users to the app page causes them to either 1) get lost, or 2) forget the whole darn thing. As said, we get practically no reviews currently from iOS.

#20

I’d assume the best way to handle this is if CoronaLabs could use StoreKit to open the review page so that the popup would occur within the app instead of leaving it. However I’m not sure if that would have any other implications.

The URL above is still a bare minimum in my opinion.