App rating

App rating is the average of all customer-submitted star ratings. The App Store displays the *all-time* average, but recent versions can be 'reset' (you choose during version submission). The rating influences both ranking (Apple ranks higher-rated apps more aggressively) and conversion (visitors filter mentally on rating; below 4.0 is the danger zone). Recovering from a 3.x rating is hard — you need a flood of new 5-star ratings to outweigh historical 1-stars. Most successful apps maintain 4.5+.