iRate. Manipulating App Store Reviews with Dark Patterns. If you’re willing to go black hat, it’s easy enough to boost your app’s reviews in the App Store through astroturfing.
The downside, however, is not just that it’s unethical – it’s also forbidden by Apple and will probably get you booted out of the App Store. This level of risk is a big turn-off for many would-be black hatters, but what if I told you that there’s a way to manipulate your real users into leaving substantially more positive reviews, and for some reason Apple are turning a blind eye to it? To get a good understanding of the whole story about manipulating App Store reviews, we need to start by looking back to 2008, when Apple introduced the rate-on-delete dialog. Appirater.