Am sure Apple is working on this, but hopefully the more voices chime in the more of a priority it becomes.
People delete apps from their devices for all sorts of reasons: maybe they didn’t “get” the app, maybe it just wasn’t for them, maybe they want to make room for a different app. Regardless, they just want to get rid of the app, and then they are prompted to rate it, not realizing that this rating cue is coming from APPLE and NOT the developer. Now annoyed, people are likely to give one star without any regard for what their rating would have been otherwise. The result is apps that work perfectly fine and have had loads of care, energy, and time put into them are having their ratings unfairly skewed negatively. Not exactly good motivation for your developers, Apple.
Solutions:
• Add a rating cue when an app has been on a device for a set period of time, let’s say… a month.
• Remove the rating cue altogether. This is preferred as people should review only when they are personally inclined to, not in the middle of trying to use their device.
• Provide some sort of “key” or guidelines for what each star level represents:
– 1 star being reserved for apps that are broken, crashy, poorly designed, or just sloppy
– 2 stars for apps that you just didn’t like even though they functioned perfectly well
– 3 stars for mediocre apps
– 4 for apps you like but could use improvement
– 5 for apps that are awesome in their novelty or execution and you couldn’t live without