The other night I heard a restaurant critic talk about reviews. When asked how he felt about the increasing reviews from "normal people", he immediately dismissed them as of little use. It is possible that he was simply trying to justify his profession, but he actually gave several reasons:

Objective

You cannot let a little thing such as the interior or service bother you a lot, if you are a food critic. You must be objective about the food. If one of the waiters does not greet you when you enter the restaurant, or you have to wait 30 minutes, you cannot let that affect the entire review.

Experience

You must have a reasonable experience and have tried many restaurants in order to give a fair comparison. If you only dine out twice each year you are simply not experienced enough to give a fair review.

Fairness

Even though the starter does not taste well, or you don't like it because you simply ordered something you did not know in advance, you should be open-minded about the main course. If you chose the wrong wine for the meal, that is your fault, not the restaurants.

Broad Taste

You need to be equipped with a strong ability to taste. If your favorite meal is steak and french fries, then you probably not equipped to judge French cuisine -- Stick to the steak houses. This is connected to experience.

Knowledge
You must know the current trends in the business, and you must be able to appreciate an original idea from an unoriginal one. If someone copied an idea from somewhere else, you can only know if you have been to both places. Obviously, the people who came up with the idea, should get the approval instead of the copiers.

App Reviews

Essentially, he did not believe that the average person would qualify as a proper reviewer. His discussion made me think about the app-store. The review system is quite horrible and I think Apple made it even worse by asking you to rate the apps when you delete them. Apple's mentality is very unlike Apple. They expect every person in the world to be equipped with the experience and objectiveness to give a review. Even worse, they try to force you to do it.

Personally, I have received some unfair reviews from my apps. Not many, but some. One review was simply 1 star accompanied by "Boring". Another review was 1 star accompanied by several correct observations and one incorrect observation about a missing feature that really was there, but which he had not noticed because he did not give the app a fair chance (it is hard not to notice the feature!). That particular reviewer had given either 1 star or 5 stars to every app he had reviewed. So I guess he either like something a lot or hated it.

Both of those reviews are hopelessly useless from a developers point of view. You cannot take a reviewer with only 1 and 5 star reviews seriously. "Boring" is even more useless. Why was it boring? Was it because he though the app did something it did not? Did it become tedious over time? Did he miss some background music and animations? We prefer to get constructive reviews. "Boring" is also useless for other potential customers.

Over the years I have grown increasingly tolerant with criticism. At least when it is fair and constructive. The only thing worse than bad critique is meaningless critique. Considering that people already paid to get an app, you would think that they would sent feature requests to the developer, so that a future update can provide them with the missing features (free of charge). However, often the reviews are not very constructive. "What a waste of money" seems to be the most reoccurring comment. The problem is that it is only a waste of money if you don't get the reviewer to improve it to your liking.

Additionally, there is countless reviews that you don't see which are simply ratings by people who delete the apps. Great system! (sarcasm). Do you delete an app you like?

The review system is flawed because only people who either hate, love, or feel compelled to review are likely to review, so you don't get everyone's attention. It is also flawed because the reviews are often not objective. Indeed you can sometimes sense that a review comes from a competing developer or simply an angry customer, who accidently bought something he did not want. I have noticed several reviews are from people who claim that there was no sound (did they have the phone in silence mode?) -- A professional reviewer would not simply dismiss an app because he did not hear any sound the first 5 seconds. He might even contact the developer and ask:"Hey! What's up with the missing sound?".

Finally, it seems that some statistical laws of great numbers influence the reviews. Many apps get ratings of around 2-3 (dead center in the review scale). iFart Mobile got a rating of 3. Why is it the top paid app? Certainly, not because people take the reviews seriously. If you look at the reviews many of them are also either 1 or 5 stars.

Perhaps you think it helps sending your apps to professional reviewers. In my experience it does not unless you have something really unusual. It gives a little spike in the sale, which can be most welcome, but since most people buy apps spontaneously, they are unlikely to visit review sites just before they buy something. Additionally, many of the review sites are completely overloaded with the heavy burden of picking and choosing between around 100 new apps per day.

Pop apps

In fact, it seems that the iphone apps are quite similar to pop-songs; They may sell well for a few weeks and then drop completely into oblivion. I would characterize iFart Mobile as having all the qualities of a pop-song. It became popular over night, perhaps because there was so much debate about it, and now everyone is looking at it to see what the fuzz is about. I predict that 1 month from now it will have dropped to tenth place.

It is also hard to sell an iPhone app for more than $1. And it is hard to warrant more than a few weeks development time for something that is $1 (because the chance of failure is too big). So Apps will never get too many features, and are limited in the same way a pop-song is limited to 3 1/2 minutes of entertainment. Additionally, like the music industry you have to either get a hit or you will not make it.

It is unsustainable, and, unlike the music industry, many developers have other choices. Most of the developers on the iPhone came because of the easy development and distribution system, but once people realizes the financial prospects, they are likely to return to the traditional IT jobs. At the same time developers will try more and more to create the hit pop app, that can make them rich overnight. One of my friends had a great idea for something that can rival the great iFart app for 1st place by appealing to the same least common denominator of people. I am keeping the idea close to the chest in case I become desperate and need the cash sometime.

Currently, I doubt there is a place on Earth where you can get more value for money than the app-store, and I wish people would appreciate all the stuff they get for $1. I doubt that the majority of developers on the platform are profiting, but I am sure the management of Apple is smiling!