42

I am referring to the popup window that asks the user to submit a review/rating.

I know it can be done since the Aardark app does it...it asks several times in fact! (Almost too spammy.) But there has to be an API to trigger the rating request? Google is giving me no love on this one.

raf
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7 Answers7

36

I would check out the Appirater project that Arash Payan has put together.

Pretty much handles the checking and displaying of the "rate my app" prompt, and brings the user right into the review portion of your app on the App Store.

It's a very clean, and elegant way to provide that minimum barrier so that your users are more likely to submit reviews of your app.

Hope this helps...

Tammen
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    Appirater the last commit is in May 2011, there are a lot of pull requests but nothing is merged. I guess the original developer does not spend time on that, so it's pretty much dead! iRate on the other hand is pretty good. – Tibidabo Nov 03 '11 at 23:19
  • Appirater works pretty well. And here you can find a MonoTouch port of it: https://github.com/chebum/Appirater-for-MonoTouch – Ivan Nikitin Feb 01 '12 at 17:35
26

I have written about a way to open right into the review panel of the App Store.

http://www.memention.com/blog/2009/09/03/Open-Reviews.html

The actual code part if called through a button press could look like below

- (IBAction)gotoReviews:(id)sender
{
    NSString *str = @"itms-apps://ax.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa";
    str = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@/wa/viewContentsUserReviews?", str]; 
    str = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@type=Purple+Software&id=", str];

    // Here is the app id from itunesconnect
    str = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@289382458", str]; 

    [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:str]];
}
epatel
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  • great answer. just what I've searched for. – AlexVogel Feb 09 '10 at 12:59
  • How can I get my app url? I tried hardcoding yours and not shared application opens... Thanks – Rigo Vides Mar 25 '10 at 19:16
  • The value "289382458" is a value I received when I uploaded the app to itunesconnect. You should find it there when you have filled in all info they want and submitted it. You can then edit your app and then revoke the binary and upload a new one to itunesconnect. – epatel Mar 25 '10 at 19:32
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    Unfortunately it seems that due to some changes in iTunes/AppStore this approach doesn't work anymore- iphone redirects from app to appstore but drops "Unable to connect" prompt. – jki May 23 '10 at 19:13
  • @Jurgis Kirsakmens I did test with a verbatim copy of the example in the blog an it did open into the review page, also tried with another app id. So, I'm not sure what problem you where experiencing. – epatel May 23 '10 at 22:31
  • @epatel - My fault! Everything works fine, if keep "Purple Software" part and use my own appid. I tried to replace "Purple Software" with my company name and then i got "Cannot connect to iTunes Store". – jki Jul 17 '10 at 10:27
  • A note: links to iTunes or the App Store won't work correctly in the iPhone simulator, and will lead to "unable to connect..." error messages. I would be sure to test features like this on the device. – IQpierce Dec 04 '10 at 17:14
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    worked perfect for me! But what does "type=Purple+Software" stand for? – Kostiantyn Sokolinskyi Sep 06 '11 at 09:38
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    You don't have to upload and revoke a binary - the app ID is available in iTunes connect as soon as the app details (description, screenshot, etc) are set up. Purple was an Apple code name for the iPhone that got left behind in the system, it's not a placeholder for your company name. – Nick Lockwood Dec 12 '11 at 13:11
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    Apparently, "Purple" was the iPhone platform's development code name – OMA Apr 03 '13 at 01:50
25

I wrote a library to do this - similar to Appirater but a bit more configurable and with Mac App Store support:

https://github.com/nicklockwood/iRate

Nick Lockwood
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9

I have discovered the most subtle value of S.O. (already obvious to all elementary school teachers) --- often by simply forming your question, your neurons rearrange and you are more successful at answering it yourself! (Either that or Google optimized my search after spying on my keystrokes and indexing my question on S.O.)

Answer found after more productive googling: http://www.mobileorchard.com/fighting-back-against-the-app-stores-negative-rating-bias/

raf
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2

this may not be what youre looking for EXACTLY but what i would do is just prompt them in the app somehow and somewhere not too annoying with a button or alert view and have that button link them to app url in safari which opens the appstore to your app. you can use the url http://www.itunes/apps/ (your app) as i believe is the synthax. i cant remember the exact code but i can get it for you if need it.

Sj.
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1

We AskingPoint have another way to do it (Im a founder) that provides BOTH App Analytics and the rating widget. You can adjust server side settings based on your analytics to prompt only your best users. Change settings on the fly. And it's translated into over 30 languages.

Cliff Ribaudo
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0

I wanted to do this when I roll the app out for the first time... looks like I'll have to wait and put it out as an update to ensure that it will work... let me know if I am wrong and there is some way I can test this before submitting to apple for distribution.

Ben Call
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  • You could set up your own URL that returns the app ID. Then, call that URL to get the app ID. Then, just update the URL with the correct app ID once you know it. – ma11hew28 Nov 07 '10 at 23:07
  • I wondered if something like that could be a reason for apple to reject the app though... link doesn't go anywhere... or where it should... – Ben Call Nov 08 '10 at 22:18
  • I just waited for it to get accepted and submitted an update. – Ben Call Nov 08 '10 at 22:19
  • You can get the app ID before you submit the app, it can be found in iTunes connect once you've set up the app but before you submit the binary. Of course the ID won't actually work, but if you want to test the mechanism, you can always try it with a different app ID and then swap it once you know that the code works. – Nick Lockwood Dec 12 '11 at 13:08