In what will surely be met with a sigh of relief from developers, Apple has stopped people running beta versions of iOS from writing reviews of apps in the App Store.
Many of these reviews tend to be negative because developers have yet to optimize their apps to run the latest prerelease software version. As a result, apps run on a beta version of iOS are far more likely to crash, or feature bugs.
Beta users who try to leave reviews on the App Store will now be met with a message reading, “You can’t write reviews while using a prerelease version of iOS.”
Not having to worry about their reputation being damaged by beta users means that developers won’t feel obliged to quickly create fixes and patches designed for the latest prerelease software.
Historical app reviews won’t be affected by the change, which only impacts on user reviews submitted from this point on.
Source: Ryan Orbuch/Twitter
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
2 responses to “iOS beta users can no longer write App Store reviews”
Good
“Beta users who try AND leave reviews” is different than “Beta users who try TO leave reviews” which is what I think you mean. (I’m really not the grammar police, but the meanings here are so different I had to say something)