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Once exclusive to some of the more well-known developers in the Play Store, today Google has finally flipped the switch, allowing all Android devs to respond to user feedback on Google Play. Users who receive a response to their feedback will receive an email with the reply, allowing them to respond directly via email and update the review on their their favorite (or not so favorite) apps accordingly.
This comes after Google began linking Play Store reviews to user’s Google+ accounts, providing for better quality reviews by holding Android users more accountable for their feedback.
I can’t wait to see how developers take to this. As someone who frequently browses through Play Store comments, I’ve slapped my forehead on more than one occasion after seeing some of the sh*te people leave hard working devs on there. While developers are allowed to go back and edit their responses at any time, keep in mind that Google’s posting guidelines strictly prohibit developers from responding too harshly with their users. Bummer.
About time!
All my yes!! Oh my gosh!! I’m so tired IDIOTS!! I’m sorry, but people are just… let me censor myself. Sometimes it’s just hard to understand that not everyone is cell phone literate. *sigh*
I sure hope this help teach people. Most of the stupid comments are there because people don’t read the description, or the reviews.
Some user comments are sooooooo ridiculous. It’s not the devs fault that a usereither doesn’t read the app info and description or is unable to understand how to follow instructions. I always feel bad when good apps get crappy reviews. If someone has a problem with an app, they need to contact the Dev so they have the opportunity to address the issue. It just gets silly sometimes.
Or good developers can make their apps much, much more intuitive. None of my apps require tons of “reading”. You can simply figure it out by using it a few times.
I agree with your approach. I wasn’t speaking toward reading intensive instructions. What I was addressing was, for an example, people who don’t read that an app is only for rooted phones and then complain that the app doesn’t work and is a piece of crap because it won’t function on their stock phone.
there are people who can’t even find their menu button.
they’ll complain about a missing feature, while it’s right there on the very first settings screen.
2 years ago I left a bad review on an app that had very few downloads and the developer emailed me and asked me how they could improve the app.
That was sort of my point on my first post. “Contact developer” is truly where problems should be addressed first. Rating is for your overall opinion. How can we give an overall opinion before we find out how devs respond to our questions or concerns about an app?
In my experience when you do that developers either don’t respond at all, respond with a canned email that has nothing to do with the problem I reported, or blame the user for their app force closing.
Unfortunately there’s only a small percentage of devs who care about the quality of their apps.
I will respond in two parts.
In reference to your first comment about no responses or canned emails, I say that is when a negative feedback is needed.
As far as your second comment about only a small amount of devs caring about the quality of their apps, I must say I think you COULDN’T BE MORE WRONG. Most devs see their apps as a part of them. In fact, most of us see them as our children. We give them life and watch them grow, hopefully, to active & useful parts of the software ecosystem. I think it is very narrow minded to toss the majority of devs into a giant pot because of a few bad Apples. IMHO
Wow… it only took a few years for google to figure out how “a reply” can be possible. They are brilliant!
I’ve had this for a couple of months… Strange. I thought it had already rolled out to all devs.
i have been waiting for this for 4 years! you probably thought everyone had it because Quentin has published at least 2 articles stating it was available for everyone when in fact it was not!
Swiftkey needs to fix the damn Power cycle bug with the Galaxy Note 2. So damn tired of having to constantly change back the keyboard setting
ohhh yeah. I’ve been waiting for this day! I have really crappy apps that I put out for free because someone else might get use out of it with absolutely no financial gain. Here’s the translation of a review: “this is s**t”. So I dont think I’ll be following any guidelines to give this waste of human waste a piece of his own medicine.
*evil laugh*
Wtf? I dunno if that was a joke or I should be worried for you.
nah, just kidding around. But I feel for the devs that actually put a lot of work into their apps just to have it rated terribly because of users’ inability to comprehend basic common sense. I think this is a welcome addition to the devconsole.
Completely agree
if only other users could reply too.
i have often seen people complain about missing features which are actually in the app’s settings screen, or about something that has nothing to do with the app.