Stay on Top of App Updates With Real-Time User Feedback

User feedback is the lifeblood of app iterations. Imagine releasing your app without any internal or external feedback about how it was received. There would be no way to know if your app needs critical bug fixes, if new features are failing, or if any improvements are needed. This post will go over the relationship between app updates and user feedback, and how Instabug helps you stay on top of releases, fix issues quickly, and improve your app for your users. But before we can get into that, we need to first go over the different types of app updates and why they make a difference.

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App update types

Not all updates are created equal and therefore not every update will follow the same update pattern. Differences in update types are shown in an app's version number. The common convention is:

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This is, however, not a rule. Some apps such as Pandora have their own variation of the app version number that highlights things differently.

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The idea remains the same: There are major updates, minor updates, and revisions. Major updates usually cover huge revamps or substantial features being added to an app. Minor updates cover smaller new features or improvements. And revisions cover minor aspects such as bug fixes and performance enhancements.

Revisions are more frequent than minor updates, which occur more often than major updates.

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App updates, user feedback, and store rankings

How does the frequency of app updates affect an app's ranking? To try and answer this we conducted extensive research into the top app store charts to see how often the best apps are releasing updates.

We took a look at the average days between app updates and see if it might have an impact on app ranking. The best fit line from the graph shows that higher ranking apps tend to update more frequently than lower ranking apps.

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Another interesting graph to look at is the minimum time between updates for the last few updates.

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As shown in the graph, it’s very common for apps to follow up an update with another one in no time. This is the "Oh no! We blew everything up!" panic fix, which they probably wouldn't have known about without user feedback.

The most common minimum day difference from the dataset we analyzed (top ranking apps in August 2019) was three days. This shows that it’s very common for even the top apps to screw up.

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Unforeseen issues happen to everyone, even established companies with huge QA and testing teams. But it’s important to catch and patch the issue before too many negative reviews come rolling in.

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App updates and user feedback

Figuring out the right release schedule for your app and meeting those deadlines are two different challenges, and they both rely on getting feedback from customers.

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Monitor your releases with bug and crash reporting

Whether you're conducting tests internally, catching bugs in beta, or monitoring your live release, you can get real-time bug and crash reports from Instabug that contain rich details to help you solve issues quickly. Keep negative reviews to a minimum by replying to users that experienced issues in-app and releasing fixes right away. And keep your releases on schedule by using Instabug's third-party integrations to maintain a seamless workflow.

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Get user feedback proactively with in-app surveys

Send out in-app surveys to stay on the pulse of how your users feel about your app, and use their responses to help prioritize app improvements. Use custom surveys for detailed feedback, and NPS surveys to measure user satisfaction with your app.

App rating surveys will help you close the feedback look and keep negative comments private instead of ending up on the app stores. Dig deeper by asking unhappy users how to improve, and prompt happy users to rate you on the app stores and drive more five-star reviews.