If you bought a Dyson vacuum at Target and it was rubbish, you wouldn't later go to a Walmart to buy a Dyson for your mum because you trust Walmart more than Target (ok, contrived example). However if you go to a store and buy generic products that turn out to be shoddy, you're likely to hold it against the store.
There's really no mystery in the Podcasts app getting very good reviews, people really love the experience even if the app itself might not be that good.
It's just like happy Tesco customers that enjoy their Pringles and not nerding over the store design. From customers perspective, the store design and the Pringles are not separate experiences.
I'm not saying that that's how app reviews should work, just answering your question regarding where the blame should fall in your store example.
Precisely. The author of the article is certainly not mystified by what is happening, and no-one responding here seems to be so, either. You are not suggesting that the quality of the podcast and that of the app are inseparable issues, are you?
I am, actually. The experience is the listening of the podcast, how that is produced and how that is delivered are technicalities that you cannot know without investigation or prior knowledge and that is useful only if you are looking into improving or duplicating the experience.
So, it makes sense to me to rate the app based on the podcasts you listened as well us the UI experience. After all, that would be the experience of other people who are about to download the app.
I've never seen a grocery store review mention how good the non-store-brand potato chips or chocolate bars are. I _do_ see reviews regularly mentioning the quality of produce and meat, which stores do have some control over. I think most people who take the time to go to Yelp / Google Maps / whatever and leave a review are aware that they're reviewing the store and not their Mars bar.
The experience using an app is completely different. Here's my dumb analogy.
You're browsing the snack food aisle in the grocery store. You really want a Mars bar, so you pick one off the shelf and go to put in your basket. As you're picking it up, a voice asks you from the heavens: "How much do you like this?"
How much do I like what? The grocery store? The Mars bar? Being asked the question at all?
My guess is that most people leaving 5 star reviews for the Apple Podcasts app had a similar experience. If you just finished listening to a 2 hour podcast that you enjoyed and are greeted with a "rate your experience" pop-up after unlocking your phone, you might be inclined to select 5 stars without thinking about what you're actually rating.
Is this some dark pattern from Apple added to pump up their app ratings? I have no idea. But I do think that the lines are very blurred, intentionally or not, in something like a podcast app. An app certainly _could_ mislead its users into leaving positive reviews.