[headhoncho1]

Lately I've been noticing that the AVERAGE RATING on itunes apps are way different from the actual average rating.

Take for example (as of today - jan23, 2009), the application BOBBLICIOUS has 8 ratings. Every single rating is either a 4 star or 5 star. However, if you look at the average rating, it shows 2.5 stars

Many other apps are the same way.

What gives?

[Maflynn]

To be honest, I really don't look at the rating as much as the reviews. If I see a reviews detailing problems, bad design or other negatives, I'll typically skip over that app.

[JKT]

Because people can rate apps without reviewing them - when you delete one from your iPhone, you are asked if you want to provide a star rating, but you aren't requested to write a review at the same time. Therefore, the people deleting the app and choosing to rate it will drag the average down (presumably they are deleting it for a reason, most likely a negative experience of the app) whereas those reviewing it are more likely to have either positive views of the app (either because it shows promise, or because they think it really is good), or really negative ones that they want to get off their chest.

[JKT]

Personally, I just wish Apple would make sure people know that 1 star means bad, not good, because quite a large number of reviewers rate the apps the wrong way around on the basis of what they have written in their comments.

[Dakar V]

Who doesn't know that less stars = bad?

[Veltliner]

Go to amazon.com, their arithmetics is weird.

Sometimes it's as if they are not counting the one star ratings. (given that there are many, many ratings, and nobody will take the pain to calculate the correct rating). Some books, that have an average of 3 stars are still rated 4,5.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Dakar V 

Who doesn't know that less stars = bad?

I don't know about other countries, but in German schools, grade "1" is equivalent to an "A", and "6" is "Fail".

[JKT]

Originally Posted by Dakar V 

Who doesn't know that less stars = bad?

If you read app reviews, you'll see that it is quite a significant number of people... it must be a huge annoyance for the developers when they see it happening (along with the morons posting bad reviews because the app crashed on them when either (a) they haven't tried restarting their phone or (b) they're using a gaolbroken one).

[iPublius]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

I don't know about other countries, but in German schools, grade "1" is equivalent to an "A", and "6" is "Fail".

Interesting system.

[mrtew]

Yeah I love all the one-star reviews I see in the store that going on and on about how excellent the app is and how much they love it and can't live without it etc etc. I always assumed it was because the default is one star and people forget to give it stars before they hit post; it never occurred to me that people had the system backwards in their mind. I do remember when I was in gradeschool I wanted to get straight ones too and it was in the rural US, not in Germany. When you think about it an 'A' is the first letter and a 'C' is the 3rd so "One" being high makes more sense than the 4.0 system of straight A's... that one really freaked me out when I got to highschool and they started using that.

Anyway I think the stars should default to 3 stars so that if people don't intentionally choose a number it won't mess up someone's score.