Hi guys -
I'm an indie developer. My partner and I have worked extremely hard these past few years refining our apps (which are all paid), getting product-market fit and tweaking the UI/UX so they really please customers.
About 3 weeks ago one of our core apps, a $3.99 drum machine went from having a soid 5-star rating with over 50 total ratings in the USA to displaying no ratings at all, despite that we've not changed the the version or marketing at all. I first noticed the problem in the ITC mobile app for this particular product, but then the stars disappeared from the actual store itself! It's been this way for nearly a month now, and the results haven't been good.
We've noticed a measurable decline in views to the app page and sales because of the lack of stars (similar to when we release a new version) and there's also a drop in cross-sells to our other products. It's just not good for business and Apple has no explanation for us. Is anyone else having this issue???
I've been going back and forth with Apple support for 2 weeks and although they've been very nice, I have no answers or ETA, and our sales are tanking - and I'm starting to get angry that Apple is still taking their cut despite not providing the fair marketplace representation for our product that we worked really hard for.
Here is tech support's response:
Hello Richard,
Thank you for following up.
I don’t have any additional details regarding this issue at this time, nor happen to know if it is affecting or impacting other apps.
In the meantime, because your app description is editable at any time, you could inform your customers that reviews for the current version can be found by selecting the “All Versions” tab and filter my most recent, at least until this is resolved.
I realize this may not be ideal, but would provide at least a way for your customers to see up-to-date reviews and ratings for the current version.
I will let you know as soon as new information regarding this issue has been relayed back to me from my senior teams.
Case number: 824827462
Best regards,
Ron
Apple Inc.