Apple's mobile-app review system needs overhaul
As an iPhone user, one of the things I've found to be increasingly irksome is the customer review system built into Apple's App Store for the iPhones and iPod Touch. It's as basic as you get, which follows the design ethos found in the many of Apple's hardware products, such as the no-button Mighty Mouse, disappearing MacBook buttons, and I/O ports on its notebook computers and LCD displays.While simplicity is one of the qualities that makes Apple's products more approachable for the basic user, it's something that doesn't translate well to a crowd-powered review system. In its current state, the review system lets you very easily rate a software application from one to five stars, along with the option to write in any thoughts or feelings you have about it. This sounds great, in theory, but a good majority of the reviews found on App Store applications seem to prove otherwise. More often than not, you'll see one-star reviews in which people are raving about the quality of an application. There are also people who give an application five stars, then go on to spend two paragraphs discussing how often it crashes and larger off-topic issues like international pricing and the handset's lack of a copy-and-paste feature. You also get a lot of comments written in ALL CAPS, with lines of Emoji icons, colored stars, and superfluous exclamation marks.Some sample reviews taken from Tower Bloxx Deluxe 3D FREE, currently the top free title on the App Store.Screenshot by Josh Lowensohn/CNETIn every sense, it's like the Wild West: untamed and full of interesting characters.To Apple's credit, on Friday, the company (as promised) removed reviews from customers who had not purchased the application they were reviewing. This may cut down on spam and ill-conceived or written reviews, but it's not a big step in improving how the review system works. Problematic by designThe problem stems from the fact that Apple has treated software reviews with the same level of simplicity it's approached movie and music reviews. These two mediums are not interactive, nor do they have hangups like development schedules and performance issues. While you can rate an album or music track based on your enjoyment of it, it's not speaking to a truth about frame rate jitters, buggy code, or a developer who has not put out a necessary update in six months--all things you may find in iPhone applications and that can be good to know before plunking down money on a purchase.One reason there's a lack of these types of clarifications in user reviews is that Apple has fragmented its reviews system based on platform. Mobile users don't get the same quality of review browsing as those using iTunes do. For instance, when viewing user reviews in iTunes, you get the option to flag a bad review and say whether it was helpful. You can also sort by best and worst reviews, along with the most helpful and recent. On the iPhone, users have none of these options. In fact, there's currently only one way to view reviews--in chronological order. For a device that's slowly gaining independence from having to sync up with a computer (as seen in recent improvements to podcast downloading on the device), this is troubling.A better systemThere are a three things Apple could do, explicitly to software application reviews, that would beef up the system and make reviews really matter to the potential customers who read them. All three can be found on Amazon.com, which has done a really fantastic job of creating a single ratings system that works on multiple genres of products:1. App Store-iTunes parityA step in the right direction would be to bring both review systems up to speed with one another. Offer the capability to sort and flag straight from the device. This could be done with sorting buttons at the top of the review section, just like what was done to sort application categories by date and popularity in the latest App Store update.Amazon's rating system gives you a breakdown of how many votes each star rating received.CNET NetworksAlso, let me see a better breakdown of the ratings, like Amazon, Newegg, and others do by showing you how many types of user votes each combined rating is comprised of. Seeing the average rating, which comes out of all the user reviews combined, is helpful. But if I could see that the app has a few hundred four- and five-star ratings, more than the lower numbers, that really says something--especially if I can drill down and read only the reviews with a specific star rating.2. Developer responseI'd love to see something similar to what Amazon.com allows, in which you can respond to certain reviews with an agreement or rebuttal, something that would let both users and developers approach a concern or praise with feedback of their own. Using this system, a developer could post direct responses to criticisms instead of the one-star review sitting there, tarnishing an application's score, long after the user had left his or her review. More importantly, the developer would not have to wait on Apple to deal with a review, presuming that it had been flagged by users (who were using iTunes to flag it) before taking action.3. User credibilityAmazon has something called Real Name. It's a system that lets users back up their reviews by putting their legal name on it. While Apple might frown on the security risks of such a system, it's done great things for Amazon, and has given people who leave detailed and thoughtful reviews a way for others to follow what they're reviewing. Apply the same thing to the App Store, and you could end up selling more applications from people who are buying things based not on media coverage, or popularity, but purely on the opinions of users whose opinions they respect. So which one of these things is Apple most likely to add? My guess is the first; a slow trickle-down from iTunes, allowing users to flag bad reviews from the App Store. Other features from iTunes have slowly crept into the App Store, and in the latest update, Apple seems to have realized that people want more ways to dig through the ever-growing list of applications. I'm just hoping the company will put that same effort into helping us wade through user reviews.
New Digg features coming today. Digg Music still AWOL
New Digg features coming today. Digg Music still AWOL
PodcastingThe fundamentally new feature with this release is Digg's podcasting category. Podcasts will be playable from within the Digg Web site. Video podcasts will be playable as well.Podcast permalink pageDiggDiggers will be able to Digg up podcast feeds (complete podcast series, for example, TWiT or CNET's Buzz Out Loud). Inside the Digg page for a feed, specific episodes will be Diggable. This is the first time, to my knowledge, that Digg has implemented a content category that's aware of hierarchy--Digg will treat series differently from individual episodes. The Digg directory also will be fundamentally different from iTunes, where the top podcast lists are based purely on the number on subscriptions. (While user reviews on iTunes can be helpful, Digg's episode-by-episode voting will make it easier to discern what is worth your time.) We think Digg could also apply the hierarchical system to anything that has RSS feeds. So we may see, at some point, the capability to Digg blogs differently than individual blog posts. VideoIn the revised Video category, the new Digg will play videos directly, rather than linking to its hosting sites. That makes sense--video services such as YouTube already make it easy to put their videos on any page; Digg is just taking advantage of that. At launch, Digg will play YouTube and Yahoo videos, as well as some other site's videos. Other video hosts, such as MetaCafe, should be added later. Where's the music?Digg CEO Jay Adelson told us there are new top-level categories coming to Digg later, but he didn't want to say which. Music, perhaps?When we asked about this, Jay laughed nervously and said, "Music is cool and we all listen to it."He did not say how or when Digg is going to let its users Digg up or down songs or artists, nor how the company is going to link to music content. Presumably Digg would have to partner with various music stores (iTunes, Zune, Napster, and Real) to implement this.Video category pageDiggFront page and UIDigg will get a new front page. It will take better advantage of monitors (instead of being fixed, as it has been), and there will be additional lists on the category and front pages. The main list of Digg stories remains much as it's been, with the most recent popular Diggs at the top. But a new, smaller list of top 10 stories (in each category) will run to the right of that. The top 10 list, which is updated in real time, is ranked strictly by number of Diggs in a given time period (about a day in the main technology categories, Jay told us), so it will present a more coherent view of what's hot in a category, not just what was most recently Dugg.Heavy Digg users who were put off by the last update (Digg version 3) that moved the category navigation from the right to the left of the screen will have to relearn the new position of the categories, now under drop-down menus at the top of the page. But we think the nav works well there, since it gives more real estate to the content.ConclusionThe user interface changes are improvements. The new embedded video player is very nice. The podcasting category looks as if it's going to be extremely useful. And we're still waiting for Digg music.Josh Lowensohn contributed to this report.
PodcastingThe fundamentally new feature with this release is Digg's podcasting category. Podcasts will be playable from within the Digg Web site. Video podcasts will be playable as well.Podcast permalink pageDiggDiggers will be able to Digg up podcast feeds (complete podcast series, for example, TWiT or CNET's Buzz Out Loud). Inside the Digg page for a feed, specific episodes will be Diggable. This is the first time, to my knowledge, that Digg has implemented a content category that's aware of hierarchy--Digg will treat series differently from individual episodes. The Digg directory also will be fundamentally different from iTunes, where the top podcast lists are based purely on the number on subscriptions. (While user reviews on iTunes can be helpful, Digg's episode-by-episode voting will make it easier to discern what is worth your time.) We think Digg could also apply the hierarchical system to anything that has RSS feeds. So we may see, at some point, the capability to Digg blogs differently than individual blog posts. VideoIn the revised Video category, the new Digg will play videos directly, rather than linking to its hosting sites. That makes sense--video services such as YouTube already make it easy to put their videos on any page; Digg is just taking advantage of that. At launch, Digg will play YouTube and Yahoo videos, as well as some other site's videos. Other video hosts, such as MetaCafe, should be added later. Where's the music?Digg CEO Jay Adelson told us there are new top-level categories coming to Digg later, but he didn't want to say which. Music, perhaps?When we asked about this, Jay laughed nervously and said, "Music is cool and we all listen to it."He did not say how or when Digg is going to let its users Digg up or down songs or artists, nor how the company is going to link to music content. Presumably Digg would have to partner with various music stores (iTunes, Zune, Napster, and Real) to implement this.Video category pageDiggFront page and UIDigg will get a new front page. It will take better advantage of monitors (instead of being fixed, as it has been), and there will be additional lists on the category and front pages. The main list of Digg stories remains much as it's been, with the most recent popular Diggs at the top. But a new, smaller list of top 10 stories (in each category) will run to the right of that. The top 10 list, which is updated in real time, is ranked strictly by number of Diggs in a given time period (about a day in the main technology categories, Jay told us), so it will present a more coherent view of what's hot in a category, not just what was most recently Dugg.Heavy Digg users who were put off by the last update (Digg version 3) that moved the category navigation from the right to the left of the screen will have to relearn the new position of the categories, now under drop-down menus at the top of the page. But we think the nav works well there, since it gives more real estate to the content.ConclusionThe user interface changes are improvements. The new embedded video player is very nice. The podcasting category looks as if it's going to be extremely useful. And we're still waiting for Digg music.Josh Lowensohn contributed to this report.
Bluefire Reader brings free public-library e-books to iOS
Bluefire Reader brings free public-library e-books to iOS
For people who love to read but don't have a lot of extra cash to spend on books, nothing beats the public library. Love ya, Ben Franklin!In recent years, many libraries have started offering e-books that you can check out for a few weeks, just like the real thing. Unfortunately, despite the plethora of e-book readers in the App Store, you couldn't read these DRM-protected library titles on your iPhone, iPod, or iPad.Now you can. Bluefire Reader now supports not only ePub and PDF formats, but also the Adobe DRM used by most libraries. I just checked out Dennis Lehane's "Shutter Island" and Junot Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," both free of charge, both without getting in the car and driving to the library.However, I had to jump through some hoops to make it happen, and the end result wasn't always perfect. Indeed, if you're expecting this process to have Kindle-like simplicity, don't. For starters, you need a library card and/or an online account with your local library. When I signed into mine, the "ebook" section listed only NetLibrary (which has a pretty weak selection) as a download source. However, I remembered previously downloading audiobooks via OverDrive--a service that also carries e-books.Sure enough, when I clicked through, I was able to browse and download from OverDrive's much larger e-book selection. (It's where I scored the two aforementioned titles.) Your mileage may vary, but I suspect that's where most libraries will lead you.OverDrive offers e-books in ePub and PDF formats. Whenever possible, choose the former; reading PDFs on an iPhone or iPod is not pleasant because you're looking at, well, PDFs, not formatted e-book files. You can't adjust the font size or much of anything else. ePubs afford a much, much better reading experience.Alas, format notwithstanding, the book you want may not be available for checkout. As with print editions in a real library, there are a limited number of licenses to go around. (Likewise, most books "expire" after three weeks, meaning they're no longer readable unless you check them out again.)I was able to place a hold on popular titles like "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and "The Help," but without knowing when they would become available.Before you can read any downloaded book, you'll need to install Adobe Digital Editions (available free for Windows and Mac OS). With that step done, you can download your library book--which you'll need to open at least once in Digital Editions before you can transfer it to Bluefire Reader.To do that, you'll use iTunes' "sideloading" feature. Check out Bluefire's help page for complete instructions.Whew! Like I said, all this is enough to make one long for the simplicity of a Kindle. But once you learn the ropes, it's actually pretty quick and easy. And, hey, isn't it worth a little effort to score e-books for free?
For people who love to read but don't have a lot of extra cash to spend on books, nothing beats the public library. Love ya, Ben Franklin!In recent years, many libraries have started offering e-books that you can check out for a few weeks, just like the real thing. Unfortunately, despite the plethora of e-book readers in the App Store, you couldn't read these DRM-protected library titles on your iPhone, iPod, or iPad.Now you can. Bluefire Reader now supports not only ePub and PDF formats, but also the Adobe DRM used by most libraries. I just checked out Dennis Lehane's "Shutter Island" and Junot Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," both free of charge, both without getting in the car and driving to the library.However, I had to jump through some hoops to make it happen, and the end result wasn't always perfect. Indeed, if you're expecting this process to have Kindle-like simplicity, don't. For starters, you need a library card and/or an online account with your local library. When I signed into mine, the "ebook" section listed only NetLibrary (which has a pretty weak selection) as a download source. However, I remembered previously downloading audiobooks via OverDrive--a service that also carries e-books.Sure enough, when I clicked through, I was able to browse and download from OverDrive's much larger e-book selection. (It's where I scored the two aforementioned titles.) Your mileage may vary, but I suspect that's where most libraries will lead you.OverDrive offers e-books in ePub and PDF formats. Whenever possible, choose the former; reading PDFs on an iPhone or iPod is not pleasant because you're looking at, well, PDFs, not formatted e-book files. You can't adjust the font size or much of anything else. ePubs afford a much, much better reading experience.Alas, format notwithstanding, the book you want may not be available for checkout. As with print editions in a real library, there are a limited number of licenses to go around. (Likewise, most books "expire" after three weeks, meaning they're no longer readable unless you check them out again.)I was able to place a hold on popular titles like "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and "The Help," but without knowing when they would become available.Before you can read any downloaded book, you'll need to install Adobe Digital Editions (available free for Windows and Mac OS). With that step done, you can download your library book--which you'll need to open at least once in Digital Editions before you can transfer it to Bluefire Reader.To do that, you'll use iTunes' "sideloading" feature. Check out Bluefire's help page for complete instructions.Whew! Like I said, all this is enough to make one long for the simplicity of a Kindle. But once you learn the ropes, it's actually pretty quick and easy. And, hey, isn't it worth a little effort to score e-books for free?
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