Mavro Inc., the creators of a series of medical Spanish guides, appear to be packing their ratings with phony recommendations from friends and flaming those who criticize them. Their medical Spanish apps are also available on the Android platform.

How are they rated? As of late Saturday July 24, 2010, their ratings are 5 stars (43 ratings), 4 stars (none), 3 stars (1 rating), 2 stars (1 rating), and 1 star (1 rating). The final one star was my own rating! Do you believe they have really earned these ratings?

The latest written review on the App Store, the one that is rated el número uno when you sort the Customer Ratings by Most Helpful is a flame against me and the rating that I gave them. A so-called customer who calls himself "Dr. Edwards (UTSW)" writes:

(I use italics to show what this "Dr. Edwards" writes.)

Originally Posted by Dr. Edwards (UTSW)

ATTN: Howard9999, its (sic.) obvious you are the competitor for this application.

I stand as a third party user who was not going to comment, until I read this comment.

If you are such an expert at medical spanish, may I ask why you are roaming the app store downloading medical spanish guides?

Anyway, from a medical student's perspective.... the EMSG has it going on. I use this in clinics and it works great, effectively and most importantly, my pts love it.

Be professional, Dr. E signing off

Look me up.

First of all, let me give you some examples of how bad the Spanish is in MAVRO apps:

EXAMPLE ONE:

"Is your vision blurred?"

MAVRO translation:

"Tiene la vista borrosa o nublada?"

What the MAVRO translation says:

"Is your view blurry or cloudy?"

The mistake that MAVRO makes, probably because they used a machine translation program, is that vista means view, not vision.

Here is how you would say it properly in Spanish:

¿Tiene usted visión borrosa o nublada?

EXAMPLE TWO:

"Shrug your shoulders."

MAVRO translation:

"Encoja sus hombros."

What the MAVRO translation says:

"Cripple your shoulders."

The mistake that MAVRO makes, and this is critical for medical professionals to understand, is that when you refer to your own body, you use reflexive verb forms.

Here is how you would say it properly in Spanish:

"Encójase los hombros."

For what it's worth, the creators of these Mavro Inc. apps also don't appear to be literate in English. For example, take this sentence from their blogspot website:

http://mavroinc.blogspot.com

Mavro Inc is dedicated to helping non-Spanish speaking healthcare professionals from gaining vital medical information from their Spanish speaking patients.

(Note that the boldface text in this paragraph above is from their website, and was not added by me.)

So there you have it. An application developer (MAVRO Inc.) that appears to be competent in neither Spanish nor English is attempting to teach English speaking health professionals how to communicate with their Spanish speaking patients in emergency medical situations.

And do you think "Dr. Edwards" is a real doctor who is using this app? Give me your opinion, and while you are at it, go to the App Store and do something about the lopsided ratings and recommendations that have been given to this obviously incompetent iPad application.

Also, while you are at it, read my review at the App store itself, in which I show how one of MAVRO's translations attempted to say, "When was your last bowel movement?" The MAVRO translation ends up meaning "When was the last time that I [the doctor or nurse who is asking the patient] defecate?"

This is how it has been from the beginning, nothing new.

This is the price we pay for the Internet. It's a readily available platform for a whole plethora of crazies and fraudsters!

Yip, the whole app store rating and review system is flawed and practically worthless from a consumers point of view. Morons rating GPS apps 1 star saying " THIS DUNT WORK!!!! RUBBISH!!!" when they're trying to run it on an iPod touch.....

Not exactly a ''breaking news'', however I do believe there is a solution. Disable the rating system and comments. and add a live chat. that way you can ask anything about it before downloading. But I'm sure that won't happen in the near future. Or just give every single app a 1 day free tryout.

Originally Posted by Joker

Or just give every single app a 1 day free tryout.

Best idea ever...

Originally Posted by Joker

Or just give every single app a 1 day free tryout.

Or have a "lite" version that does not have all of the functionality of the paid version or uses advertising. There are some very interesting apps out there for $9.99 (and up!) that I might like to try, but that is a bit steep so they lose me right off the bat. I will spend 99¢ for an app or maybe even $2-3, but $10 is too much to spend just to "kick the tires" since I can't get my money back just because I don't like it.

I think the original poster has a sense of humor as well as justifiable outrage.

I suggest you email apple iTunes support as
They are the ones that can act on this

Cheers Colin

If Apple could come up with a Try Before You Buy system it sure would be a game winner for them.