Ian, I appreciate your perspective as the developer. A couple of comments to the points you made:

Thank you for your objective review of my app.

As I mentioned in my earlier comment, this wasn’t an app review, nor did it pretend to be.

This is completely wrong. I do care about what my users think.

I believe you. The problem is, the lack of detail implies to potential customers that you don’t. Unfair to you? Sure. But that’s the reality. That’s why I entitled the post “Judging a Book By Its Cover.” We’re not judging people here, we’re judging products.

So much, in fact, I have hired a graphic designer to do some images for the new update.

I look forward to seeing the revamped interface. Though hiring a graphic designer probably wasn’t even necessary. A half hour playing with an indie graphic design app, like Intaglio (vector) or Pixelmator (raster), probably would have resulted in completely acceptable visuals. You obviously have the tech savvy. Mastering the basics of one of those apps would have been cake for you.

The problem is this: launching the app before it was visually polished resulted in some poor review scores, which dragged your average down. Is it fair that reviewers ranked it solely based on appearance? No. But it happened. And now you have an uphill climb to get your ratings where you want them.

As they say, you only get one chance to make a first impression. And anyone who thinks that only snobs care about look and feel (Abe) will never be a great salesman. Software developer. Or eLearning designer.

I’m the developer of Car Finder, Ian Cinnamon. Thank you for your objective review of my app. There are a couple things I would like to address:
1) “Now, I won’t speak for you, but I’ll tell you exactly what this visual design mess tells me: the developer doesn’t care one whit what I think about him or his app. And it tells me (whether accurately or not) that he probably spent as much time working on the functionality of the app as he spent on its visual presentation. Which is to say, not much.”
This is completely wrong. I do care about what my users think. So much, in fact, I have hired a graphic designer to do some images for the new update. You can see screenshots at cinndev.com. The update was released to Apple and will be out shortly.

2) I do agree with you that many apps on the app store need a better GUI. But that is not grounds for rejection from the app store.

– Ian Cinnamon
cinndev.com

There are worse items on the store to grind your axe on.

Yes, there are plenty of bad ones to single out. I chose Car Finder.

Why don’t you take on the review system? That could use a revamp.

Yes, it most certainly could use a revamp. But my blog isn’t about software reviews, it’s about eLearning design. And the point of this post is that if you can’t take the time to add visual polish to your work, you can’t expect people to take the time to check it out or take it seriously. “God is in the details” – Mies van der Rohe.

Judging by book cover or by ideology instead of actually reviewing the app.

Again, my blog is not about reviewing apps, and my post about Car Finder is not an app review. Some people may consider high expectations in design to be “snobbishness.” I simply consider it to be mandatory in today’s competitive marketplace.

Car Finder may be a spectacular app. But most users will never know because it doesn’t appear to be at first glance. And when you’re competing with thousands of other apps, that first glance may be all you get.

And if you roll out eLearning that is visually sloppy, your learners my be tuning out mentally after the first screen or two. That’s just the harsh reality.

If what you say is accurate, the guy is 15. Not 6. If he’s old enough to program an iPhone app (and sell it in Apple’s store), for crying out loud, he’s old enough to give the interface more than a preschool-level attempt. I’ve seen some great stuff done by developers that are this age.

This app may be as useful as you say. But most users will never know because they won’t try it. Why? Because it looks illegitimate. That’s just life. This should never have been released in its current state.

Software (and eLearning) development ain’t lemonade stands.