Mango 5Star PressKit

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

What is Mango 5Star?

Mango 5Star an app that exclusively displays 5-star reviews of your apps.

• On iOS, they are displayed on your home screen widgets.
• On macOS, in addition to widgets, they can optionally be displayed on your wallpaper.
• On visionOS, they are displayed in separate windows, which you can create as many as you want and put wherever in your space.

Why? As developers, we all know how a random 1-star review can ruin our day or even week. By only displaying 5-star reviews, Mango 5Star can constantly remind us there are more positive aspects to focus on.

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 /EE·lay/, a.k.a. y2mango
• Platform: iOS and iPadOS 16.0 or later, macOS 13.0 or later, and visionOS 1.0 or later.
• Tech: The iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS versions are 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; visionOS version: 2024-02-02 (YES, It's available day one!).
• Price: Paid upfront $2.99 (USD).

Common Features

• Apps and podcasts: It supports 5-star reviews of apps and podcasts on Apple platforms.
• 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.
• Review Filters: You can filter reviews by languages, and countries and regions.

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.
• Custom themes: You can customize the widget themes so they fit on your home screen.
• 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.
• Dark mode: Yes.

visionOS Features

• Mini Windows: You can create as many mini windows you want, resize them, and put them anywhere in your virtual space.

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.