It was exactly three weeks after releasing the app when the 1-star review arrived, on a late night. After finishing work late and opening the store management screen, I noticed a notification saying "A new review has arrived." Usually I would open it with some nervousness mixed with anticipation, but that night, for some reason, I tapped slowly. Maybe it was intuition. The text displayed on the screen was just one line: "No notifications come through. I don't understand what this app is for. Worst." One star. Lily froze in front of that screen for a while. She tried to argue back, but nothing came out. That was the beginning of everything.
The first thing I felt after reading the review wasn't anger or sadness, but a quiet resignation of "Yeah, that's right."
This app was a small tool that automatically reminded users of scheduled tasks, something Lily had created for her own task management. She thought it might be useful and decided to release it publicly, but honestly, she had vaguely sensed before release that there was a problem with how notifications were delivered. When processing concentrated during certain time periods, some notifications would overflow from the queue and fail to arrive.
But Lily decided, "Well, I won't use it that heavily anyway," and pressed the publish button as is.
The 1-star review hit exactly that point. The words "No notifications come through" were the exact problem Lily had been ignoring. That's why she couldn't argue back. Because it wasn't wrong.
The Shorter the Words, the More They Sting
The word "worst" seems crude. But behind that crudeness lies the experience of trying it with hope, only to find it didn't work. Someone spent time trying it. And they were disappointed. When Lily imagined that, she felt something heavy in her chest.
Even after closing the management screen, that one line wouldn't leave her head. When she went to bed that night, when she woke up the next morning.
The next morning, while drinking coffee, she opened that review again. She could read it a bit more calmly than the night before, but the sting didn't change. If anything, reading it again in the daylight hurt more.
Because the fact that "I already knew, but I was ignoring it" became clearer.
During testing before release, there were several cases where notifications were delayed or didn't arrive. She understood the cause to some extent. In the configuration file that managed processing, the upper limit on the number of tasks that could be processed simultaneously was set too low. Changing that number just slightly would have solved the problem almost entirely.
But Lily didn't do it.
"It's not a problem for how I use it," "Heavy users probably won't come anyway," "I can fix it later"—she accumulated these excuses bit by bit and pressed the publish button.
I realized then that guilt isn't something that's born only when someone points it out. Something that was already inside you becomes visible through words from outside. That's both the scariness and the honesty of reviews, I think.
Even though I felt guilty, I didn't fix it right away.
For two days after reading the review, Lily didn't touch that bug. Every time she opened her editor, she'd start a different task instead. "I'm tired today," "Let me finish this first"—excuses came endlessly.
Justifying Not Fixing It
Looking back, I think Lily kept asking herself "Is it worth fixing?"
"It's just one review anyway," "It's a free app after all," "Even if notifications don't come through, it's not something that would seriously trouble anyone"—that's how she tried to make the problem seem smaller.
But to be honest, I think I was afraid to fix it.
Fixing it means admitting "That really was a defect." Not to others, but to myself. The fear of acknowledging that something I created had flaws was what stopped me from acting.
"Eventually" Never Comes
When doing personal development, you use the phrase "I'll fix it eventually" many times. Lily does too. But this phrase is quite dangerous. Since "eventually" has no deadline, priority keeps dropping. Before you know it, you're so caught up in other work that opening that file itself becomes a hassle.
That 1-star review was the event that broke that loop.
On the evening of the third day, Lily finally opened that file.
It wasn't that I suddenly became determined. Maybe I just got tired of thinking about it. That feeling where the cost of continuing to worry about "what to do" exceeded the cost of "just doing it."
When I opened it, the problem spot was found immediately. Just one line in the configuration file. Change the number managing the upper limit of simultaneous processing from 1 to 5. That was all the fix needed.
It didn't even take 5 minutes.
I don't know how to express what I felt at that moment. Shame might be the closest word. Three days of worrying, wearing myself out, piling up excuses, and finally when I got to it, it was done in 5 minutes. That's all it was.
But at the same time, there was a feeling of relief. The weight of knowing about the problem and letting it sit lifted a little.
A week after releasing the fix, another new review arrived. A short sentence saying "Notifications actually come through now, simple and easy to use," with 4 stars.
After that, I could see changes in the numbers. The average review rating before the fix was ★1.8 (3 reviews), but in the two weeks after the fix it went up to ★3.6 (9 reviews). Same app. The only thing I changed was one configuration value.
What Was Bigger Than the Numbers
But what was bigger than the rating going up was that something inside me changed.
After putting in the fix, Lily lost her hesitation about opening the management screen. Before, every time she checked reviews, she was afraid something bad would be written. That fear, she realized only after fixing it, came from the guilt of letting a known problem sit.
The same app looks completely different when you're carrying a problem versus after you've faced it. You could call it trust in your own product. The difference between thinking "Is this okay?" and thinking "This should be okay" was bigger than I expected.
I don't know if the person who wrote that review still uses Lily's app. I don't know if they even noticed the fix.
But if that one line hadn't existed, Lily might still be repeating "I'll fix it eventually." Harsh words can convey more than kind words. But only when the receiver can't argue back.
When doing personal development, your affection for your product and your insensitivity to its flaws coexist without you noticing. When someone says "This is broken," that's actually very valuable. If they don't tell you, you can keep pretending not to see it even when you know.
What Lily still remembers vividly is the moment she read that review and felt "I can't argue back." That feeling was honest. Recognizing that honesty became the reason to move three days later.
The 1 star was right. In just one line, it accurately put into words the fact that Lily had been ignoring all along.
There are still parts I haven't fixed. Probably parts I'll keep pretending not to notice until the next criticism comes. But because of this experience, I think I'll be able to face it a little sooner next time.
Lily（@bokuwalily）― Individual developer. Making iOS apps and web services in tandem with AI
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Lily（@bokuwalily）― Individual developer / AI adoption and business automation consultant. Making iOS apps and web services in tandem with AI while consulting with companies on AI adoption and automation
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