Useful changes come to App Store reviews
You won’t get bugged for reviews as much, and devs get to reply
BIG CHANGES ARE coming to the App Store, both for customers and app developers. In abridged notes for the release of the iOS 10.3 developer beta, Apple revealed that it’s introducing an official way for app and game developers to solicit review feedback from customers. But, to combat complaints from users about apps that spam you for ratings over and over again, developers can only do this three times per year, and this counter does not reset when new versions are released. Users can universally disable prompts to leave ratings and reviews using the Settings app, will be able to post reviews from within apps rather than bring forced to go to the App Store, and can use 3D Touch on iPhone to mark reviews as helpful when browsing the App Store.
ONE CHANGE THAT will be welcomed by developers is the chance to be given a right of reply to reviews on the app stores for iOS and Mac, visible to all customers. Before, developers had no connection to customers unless they had collected information via user registration, and were given no right of reply on the App Store. This has been a bugbear for app makers for years; if anyone left bad ratings because they misunderstood an aspect of the app or had a solvable technical issue, the developer had no way to help them, while their average rating was still lowered. Apple uses an app’s ratings as part of its metrics for App Store search results, so a good rating can be vital to an app’s success.
Users will also be able to edit their reviews, and developers can then edit their replies, enabling a kind of conversation – albeit in an awkward layout.
Apple hasn’t given a timeline for the implementation of the changes, saying only that apps already on the App Store won’t have to change their review prompt behavior immediately.