The second one, of course, but that should come from genuine reviews, not gaming the system because when you do that then it devalues the system for everyone.

Both. Say I’m looking for a budget app. They can be very different and work very differently. Also given that it is still possible to buy reviews, how much do you really trust them. I would even look at the app that had 1000 one star reviews out of curiosity. I mean Apple’s own apps often have a 2 star average and they are the ones I use all the time.

I think I’m going to adopt the strategy of leaving a 1 star review saying “the app prompted me to review it before I got to use it”.

In both cases I'm going to look at the reviews.

In the case of a lot of 5-star reviews with little to no content, I'm going to assume they've either gamed it in the way being described upthread or that the reviews are fake, which renders the rating and number of reviews irrelevant to me.

I'll definitely look at some 4-star reviews to see what people who liked the app in general didn't like. I'll also read some 1-star reviews to see if there are any red flags/deal breakers like... the pestering behavior being described upthread.

This type of behavior is unlikely to succeed with me if I find out it occurs. Not everyone does it and "it makes me more money" might be a reason someone would do it, but it doesn't convince me I should tolerate it. I'm extremely intolerant of any behavior that shows disrespect for users and doesn't value their time.

This method could succeed with me if it was a one-time purchase and I was unaware of the behavior. It won't succeed with me if the app is free and offers IAP (something I tend to avoid anyway, though) or if it is a subscription-based app.

One of them. Or neither. I'm not using the app store for product discovery. Ratings are thoroughly gamed and comments are bullshit. If I install an app, it's because of an outside recommendation, and so I search directly for it by name.

(It's a principle I live by in general: don't use e-commerce platforms for product discovery; neither the platform nor the sellers have any incentive to give you best value for your time/money, and manipulation is rampart.)

But I get your point. If I were to choose, I'd probably lean towards the higher-rated and higher-review-count app, but I would make sure to read a few 1-star and 5-star reviews on both to determine how trustworthy the app is.

Usually I would just try the free version of both. And then decide.

Neither. When I go to the official app store, I already know what I am getting and why I am getting it. The few times I have glanced at reviews, they have been useless.

When I'm browsing for Android apps, I tend to stick to F-Droid, where I judge from the description and maybe the website. They don't offer ratings or reviews. Much of the open source ecosystem seems to be like this. You don't get ratings in most package managers and extension managers. At best you will get download counts.

I think the differentiation between commercial software (even the gratis stuff) and open source is telling. Ratings and reviews are about marketing, not the actual quality of the product.