The first weeks are over since Hello Friends has been released. Taking a look at user ratings is mandatory to get to know what works well and what seems to be missing. It’s great to see that the app gets so many nice reviews.

Let me collect some user reviews from the store:
★★★★★ “Should be made part of OS. Really worth the $$$.”
★★★★★ “Great idea, why Microsoft didn’t build this right into the OS is beyond me”
★★★★★ “Wow, I really like this app! Great job.”
★★★★★ “Adds awesome customization for the lock screen! Love it!”
★★★★★ “Excellent addition to new home screen experience :-)”
★★★★★ “Very nice! Microsoft should have thought of this.”
To cut a long story short: That’s really impressive.

But not enough with these great reviews: Windows Phone Central did a review of Hello Friends and says the following about it:

“The app is so ingenious, we’re kind of shocked Microsoft didn’t build this in to the OS. […] HelloFriends simply generates gorgeous lock screen wallpaper based off of your contact photos.”

Another review from winsource.com says:

“We wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft bought this app and built it into the People Hub. It works that well.”

What do we learn from these reviews? It seems that the first analysis of requirements was quite successful, so that users enjoy a clean and simple app with a well-defined scope of functionalities.

That’s a great start for Hello Friends! I also watched the ranking of Hello Friends in the store. Since some days, the app worked its way up to the top and is now #1 of the top paid photo apps in the U.S. with an average of 4.5 out of 5 stars (67 ratings):

Beside all these reviews, there are a lot of suggestions and comments from users that reached me. Among them are many great ideas that will lead to upcoming features. I really want to thank you for these suggestions!

In the next chapter I will explain how to design the visual appearence of this app.

You can get the app from the store right here: