Feature request: add ratings

[mnm1992]

Can the ratings also be added to this library, like the android version?
They are a bit more complex to fetch, but very useful.
You can fetch them with the call below:
By using: GET http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewContentsUserReviews?id=&pageNumber=0&sortOrdering=2&type=Purple+Software
With headers:
User-Agent: iTunes/9.1.1
X-Apple-Store-Front: 143441-1

X-Apple-Store-Front tells it which apple store to talk to 143441-1 is usa.
This page includes all reviews and all ratings, so it includes way more data then the rss feed and is literally the call that itunes makes.

[facundoolano]

Sounds interesting, but I can't seem to make it work:

 curl -XGET "http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewContentsUserReviews?id=1091944550&pageNumber=0&sortOrdering=2&type=Purple+Software" -A "iTunes/9.1.1" -H "X-Apple-Store-Front: 143441-1"

Can you show an example url to get with curl (or tell me what client you used to test it). Also it would be useful if you show an example response.

[mnm1992]

https://github.com/mnm1992/review-fetcher/blob/master/fetcher/iosRatingScraper.js full js code sample :)

[mnm1992]

And an article explaining howto do it in curl: https://innumero.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/scraping-the-apple-app-store/

[facundoolano]

Still no luck, this prompts for a password, and sending an empty one as your link suggests doesn't work either.

curl -H "Host: itunes.apple.com" -H "Accept-Language: en-us, en;q=0.50" -H "X-Apple-Store-Front: 143444,5" -H "X-Apple-Tz: 3600" -U "iTunes/9.1.1" "http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewContentsUserReviews?id=1091944550&pageNumber=0&sortOrdering=2&type=Purple+Software";

I've tried several combinations, please provide me with a command that I can paste as is to get the results.

[mnm1992]

Weird it does work in postman(A chrome extension) and my js app(See link above).

[mnm1992]

https://pastebin.com/NGxW3YPF
Is the output of the call, Some nice xml based webobjects.

[facundoolano]

Postman doesn't work because it doesn't allow you to override the user agent.

[mnm1992]

It does, that's where I copy pasted the pastebin output from. It gives a warning yes, and then does it anyway

[mnm1992]

And the postman call, that should help, just press end after importing this
iTunes.postman_collection.zip

[mnm1992]

Btw I tried on windows and osx, mabye postman can't do useragent magic on linux

[mnm1992]

Update on this, since the old way mentioned here no longer works.
If you want to integrate this feature in the future an example is here: https://www.npmjs.com/package/iosratingfetcher.

[tdunham02]

Here is the endpoint:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/customer-reviews/id529479190?dataOnly=true&displayable-kind=11

Using an iTunes user agent, it returns:

{ "adamId": 529479190, "clickToRateUrl": "https:\/\/userpub.itunes.apple.com\/WebObjects\/MZUserPublishing.woa\/wa\/userRateContent?displayable-kind=11&id=529479190", "writeUserReviewUrl": "https:\/\/userpub.itunes.apple.com\/WebObjects\/MZUserPublishing.woa\/wa\/writeUserReview?cc=us&displayable-kind=11&id=529479190", "totalNumberOfReviews": 368921, "userReviewsRowUrl": "https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/WebObjects\/MZStore.woa\/wa\/userReviewsRow", "userReviewsSortOptions": [ { "sortId": 1, "name": "Most Helpful" }, { "sortId": 2, "name": "Most Favorable" }, { "sortId": 3, "name": "Most Critical" }, { "sortId": 4, "name": "Most Recent" } ], "kindId": 11, "kindExtId": "iosSoftware", "kindName": "software", "saveUserReviewUrl": "https:\/\/userpub.itunes.apple.com\/WebObjects\/MZUserPublishing.woa\/wa\/saveUserReview?displayable-kind=11", "ariaLabelForRatings": "4 and a half stars", "ratingCount": 2810478, "ratingCountList": [ 112419, 60634, 114882, 284207, 2238336 ], "ratingAverage": 4.5, "currentVersion": { "ariaLabelForRatings": "4 and a half stars", "ratingCount": 675780, "ratingCountList": [ 16736, 7007, 17914, 51612, 582511 ], "ratingAverage": 4.5 } }

[christian-fei]

@facundoolano I am working on a .ratings method to add to the public API.

The method .ratings fetches the histogram and total number of ratings from the /customer-reviews endpoint like @tdunham02 suggested. It works like a charm (also by appId like in .similar).

I was thinking, to keep app-store-scraper and google-play-scraper aligned, it would be nice to include the information about the histogram in the .app method (either by default or by providing a parameter to .app), along these lines:

var store = require('app-store-scraper');

store.app({id: 553834731}).then(console.log).catch(console.log);

// or

store.app({id: 553834731, ratings: true}).then(console.log).catch(console.log);

Results:

{ id: 553834731,
  appId: 'com.midasplayer.apps.candycrushsaga',
  title: 'Candy Crush Saga',
  currentVersionScore: 4.5,
  histogram: { '1': 14, '2': 11, '3': 26, '4': 51, '5': 284 },
  ratings: 386,
  ...
}

The interesting part is that it works out of the box with the country parameter that .app accepts.

Let me know if it makes sense and have any suggestions.

Cheers,

[facundoolano]

I'm ok with that as long as the ratings request/parsing doesn't happen by default (when not explicitly requested).

[christian-fei]

@facundoolano awesome!

will get back to you once ready and PR this stuff 🚀

Great work, life-saving :)

[christian-fei]

PR here: #94

[christian-fei]

@facundoolano can we close this now?

[christian-fei]

Thank you, it was a creative discussion and pleasant PR 🤝