Mango 5Star PressKit

Screenshots, promo-art, logo, and icons are included here: Mango 5Star PressKit.zip

What is Mango 5Star?

Mango 5Star is an iOS 14 home screen widget app that displays a random 5-star review of your apps and podcasts, and refreshes after however long you choose. It also has a macOS version that displays 5-star reviews as wallpapers.

Fact sheet

• Screenshots, promo-art, logo, and icons: Mango 5Star PressKit.zip
• Website: https://mangoumbrella.com/5star
• App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/mango-5star/id1473088658
• Solo developer: Yilei "Dolee" Yang
• Platform: iOS and iPadOS 14.0 or later, macOS 10.14 or later.
• Tech: The iOS and iPadOS version is written entirely in Swift and SwiftUI. The macOS version is written in Swift and AppKit.
• Release date: macOS version: 2019-07-20; iOS and iPadOS version: 2020-10-20.
• Price: Paid upfront $2.99 (USD).

iOS and iPadOS Features

• Widgets: This is the sole purpose of Mango 5Star. It displays a random 5-star review of your apps and podcasts in the widget, and refreshes after however long you choose.
• Apps and podcasts: It supports 5-star reviews of apps and podcasts on Apple platforms.
• Custom themes: You can customize the widget themes so they fit on your home screen.
• Review list: You can view the list of 5-star reviews of your apps and podcasts.
• iCloud sync: Your added apps and podcasts are synced with iCloud (macOS version is not yet supported).
• Custom app icons: It provides 5 alternative app icons.
• Dark mode: Yes.

macOS Features

• Wallpapers: It displays a random 5-star review of your apps and podcasts as your desktop wallpaper, and refreshes after however long you choose. Big Sur widgets are planned in a future release.
• Apps and podcasts: It supports 5-star reviews of apps and podcasts on Apple platforms.
• Dark mode: Yes.

What is the story behind Mango 5Star?

On July 6, 2019, I was listening to EP 56: The Happiest Customer of the Independence podcast. Curtis pitched this app idea:

A mac app, that will sit in your menu bar. You can feed it your iTunes connect information. And it will go to your ratings, pull random 5-star rating every however many hours. And have like kind that those motivational quote things, but have in your wallpaper.

After hearing it, I just couldn't stop thinking about it. As developers, we all experienced those 1-star ratings that ruin our day or week. We humans are bad at ignoring them. We fail to remind ourselves that there are more important 5-star customer ratings out there. So I immediately created the Xcode project and started implementing. On the next day I sent the hosts @eataduckimust, @parrots, @jellybeansoup a demo. I got great feedbacks and launched the first version in two weeks. I later then released 5 updates to improve it.

I didn't expect other huge updates to the app. Until one day after 2020's WWDC, I realized that this app is now viable after the introduction of iOS 14 home screen widgets. So the iOS version was born.

Any questions?

If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to contact me via email or twitter.