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Comment by jjcon | Hacker News Reader

The best part is how Apple Podcasts had a 1.x star rating in the App Store so they gamed the system in a way that would get any other app kicked off - they prompted people for reviews making them think they were rating specific podcasts and not the app

https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/19/22791968/apple-podcasts-...

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> We weren’t able to track down a copy of the prompt ourselves to confirm when and where it appears or what it looks like — which seems important if people are getting confused […]

This is speculation presented as news. The confusion certainly appears to be real, but there's no actual investigative reporting.

It’s not speculation just because they don’t have a photo of the prompt (of which I’ve received personally) - the story is in plain sight in the ratings themselves, go have a look.

Here’s another article from an apple friendly source

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/11/19/podcasts-rating-prompt-...

EDIT: Actually - found a screenshot mid-podcast: https://i.imgur.com/dnqcAbQ.jpeg

The screenshot you posted is the same format as review prompts for every app I've seen one on. It's literally just "Enjoying <app name>?". Sure, they could go the extra mile to disambiguate for those that aren't familiar, but this is pretty simple stuff.

Is that prompt confusing? It says outright that you're rating the app in the app store.

It is definitely confusing when it is coming in the middle of a playing podcast. Just look at the App Store reviews - they are all for specific podcasts, not the app itself:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apple-podcasts/id525463029?see...

The fact that some people don't read before clicking isn't something I'm going to hold against Apple. The prompt isn't a block of legalese, and it doesn't claim in any way to be asking to rate the specific podcast.

My delivery tracking app has popped up the same screen asking me to rate it, but I've never figured it was asking me to rate my UPS driver.

Apples own design guide for requesting reviews, the guide for which they use to reject apps or app updates stipulates:

"Avoid interrupting people while they're performing a task or playing a game."

I would say mid podcast certainly qualifies as breaking that rule. They know exactly what they are doing when they ask for ratings mid-podcast and the reviews show it. The fact that it is confusing users would be enough for Apple to remove the app from the App Store for review manipulation if it were anyone but themselves. Again, take a look at the review section:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apple-podcasts/id525463029?see...

This is just the standard alert from the SKStoreReviewController API that any app can use.

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/ratings-and-reviews/

Right but explicitly calling it during a playing podcast is obviously confusing - just look at the review section: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apple-podcasts/id525463029

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