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Google declares war on 1-star app reviews

Apps in the bottom 25 percent of the Google Play Store had better watch out.

Jessica Dolcourt Senior Director, Commerce & Content Operations
Jessica Dolcourt is a passionate content strategist and veteran leader of CNET coverage. As Senior Director of Commerce & Content Operations, she leads a number of teams, including Commerce, How-To and Performance Optimization. Her CNET career began in 2006, testing desktop and mobile software for Download.com and CNET, including the first iPhone and Android apps and operating systems. She continued to review, report on and write a wide range of commentary and analysis on all things phones, with an emphasis on iPhone and Samsung. Jessica was one of the first people in the world to test, review and report on foldable phones and 5G wireless speeds. Jessica began leading CNET's How-To section for tips and FAQs in 2019, guiding coverage of topics ranging from personal finance to phones and home. She holds an MA with Distinction from the University of Warwick (UK).
Expertise Content strategy, team leadership, audience engagement, iPhone, Samsung, Android, iOS, tips and FAQs.
Jessica Dolcourt
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Google wants to help you get more good apps on your phone.

Josh Miller/CNET

Google wants to improve Android apps, and it's not afraid to call out the bad ones.

Crashing, slowness and battery vampirism enrage Android device owners and make the appmaker look bad.

A whopping 50 percent of 1-star apps are slammed because they're unstable, the Google Play team said at the annual I/O developer conference. And that's not great for a company that's helped push out 82 billion app installations in the past year.

Google's plan to improve the bottom 25 percent of app ratings in the Google Play Store starts with flagging those bad app-les.

All the cool stuff Google announced at I/O

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An app might make the hit list for:

  • Freezing for more than 5 seconds at a time
  • Crashing
  • Lag time (specifically, when 50 percent of your frames render under 60 frames per second)
  • Using the radio or CPU unnecessarily
  • Waking up the device more than 10 times per hour when it's idle

Google will follow up with tips to help appmakers understand their problems and turn their apps around. A metrics dashboard will also help developers decide when it's time to push out an update or suss out why users are uninstalling in unusually large numbers.

Hopefully these changes will lead to better apps for everyone.