Bruising the Ego

I've learned quite about managing your ego when it comes to development. Every programmer has an ego, don't listen to what they might tell you otherwise. We all consider ourselves the poets of the computing world, thinking up beautifully elegant solutions to impossible problems.

I have a huge ego, I freely admit this. I don't handle criticism well and I'm a sore loser. I constantly aim to blow peoples minds with my genius and when that doesn't happen I fall into pits of self loathing and depression. It's a constant struggle for me.

Two of my apps have received bad reviews recently. I've got another app that I'd written for a client that seems to have given up on me all together, bought my app and immediately reporting a bug and requesting all sorts of changes. I fixed the bug right away and then spent a month re-writing the app. Now they won't respond to my emails, nor have they updated the app. My natural pessimism tells me that they've written me off all together, but I just don't know.

Being that two people have chosen to be vocal about their dislike of my apps, demographically I know that there are a percentage of others out there that feel the same way and have just chosen not to speak up. I spent a lot of time and energy on those apps and I'm very proud of them and their success so far. These were my ideas, my creations, my products and I want everyone to love them.

Now in my defence neither of these two users appear to have read the description of the apps before purchasing, which is their mistake. And the things they're complaining about are actually restrictions put in place by Apple, nothing to do with me. But these are still my app reviews. There is also information within the apps and on the app store that would allow a displeased customer to get in touch with me of there's a problem. But they haven't tried to reach me. I take some solace in knowing, from experience, that there are customers out there that just want to complain about anything that they can. You can't please everyone right, so why don't all those that like my apps post good reviews and make me feel better about it. I'm sat here looking at dissatisfied customers and poor reviews and I'm powerless to do anything about it.

I suppose that I could look at it as there's being an opposing percentage of those that are very happy with my app. There is one good review as well, so that's something.