Apple Stops Beta Testers From Reviewing Apps

[Suika]

(click for sauce)

I haven't made a news post in awhile. GET READY FOR THE REAL QUALITY.

 

It seems that people keet unfairly reviewing apps on the app store while they were using the iOS Beta, expecting perfect compatibility. That's completely unfair to the developers, while yes they should be optimizing for the newest platforms, it's just not released yet, and any issues could related to the OS itself instead of just the app. So what does Apple do? They stop beta testers from writing reviews, completely. 

 

Apple has had the good sense to shut down app reviews for anyone using prerelease builds and now displays a message saying "this feature isn't available" and that users "can't write reviews while using a prerelease version of iOS."

 

This is an interesting turn and really fair from Apple considering how open the recent iOS beta is. Should a developer be punished with negative reviews for an app being incompatible with a beta version of iOS? Of course not. I wish this would have been released a bit sooner but better late than never.

 

But the change is still one that's sure to be welcomed by developers, as it eliminates the concern of their average App Store review score tanking due to unreasonable expectations from people running early, bug-prone versions of iOS. An app could run flawlessly for the millions of people running iOS 8, yet exhibit random issues and glitches on the iOS 9 beta.

 

So what do you guys think? Is this a good move from Apple, fair for developers, or "hurr durr I hate Apple because reasons but I blindly follow Google's Android OS"?

[ShadowCaptain]

 

So what do you guys think? Is this a good move from Apple, fair for developers, 

Yes I totally agree with their reasoning, apps should not get bad reviews because people are using untested software

[NinjaTitan]

Yes I totally agree with their reasoning, apps should not get bad reviews because people are using untested software

 

IMHO I agree. 

 

I am running both the public beta and Beta 4 on two of my devices - so naturally some apps work flawlessly and some need genuine updates to be fully compatible. For example, Sync Solver is an app that sends Fitbit data to Apple Health. It flat out is broken under iOS 9 betas. That is not a knock against the app. The creator of the app said he won't have a updated version for at least a few weeks, as he wasn't anticipating to support a public beta or beta at all. 

 

Thats not a knock against him or his app. so why should uninformed testers have the ability to rate apps on a beta? Doesn't make sense. iOS 9 has reporting tools so you can send detailed logs should issues occur. Do that. Don't give developers bad ratings because you willingly chose to run beta software. 

 

I applaud what Apple is doing with having public betas but it really does bring out some ignorant people who think the software is bulletproof and stable enough as a daily driver. It isn't. Its never a good idea to anyways. 

[shujin]

totally agree on this 

 

maybe let them review but without adding it to the average

[niofalpha]

I agree. Anyone that gets mad about this is just trying to get an excuse to hate apple.

[Briggsy]

Or they could do like google does, where a review or rating will be tagged with (for a previous version) if the app gets updated. Not a perfect system, but its nice from a user standpoint to know that conflicting reviews can be weighed by review date and app version.

[TroubleKlef]

It's a beta. It's buggy. Can't blame anyone really but yourself for choosing to run beta software and then complain that it's buggy.

[Bensemus]

Or they could do like google does, where a review or rating will be tagged with (for a previous version) if the app gets updated. Not a perfect system, but its nice from a user standpoint to know that conflicting reviews can be weighed by review date and app version.

Apple already has that. The default is to see reviews from the most up to date version of the app. You have to manually change it to see reviews from previous versions.

[Briggsy]

Apple already has that. The default is to see reviews from the most up to date version of the app. You have to manually change it to see reviews from previous versions.

 

good to know. makes me wonder why Apple is making a fuss over beta testers giving bad reviews, if the reviews aren't going to be seen by hardly anyone at a later date.

[Bensemus]

good to know. makes me wonder why Apple is making a fuss over beta testers giving bad reviews, if the reviews aren't going to be seen by hardly anyone at a later date.

The app might get burred by the negative reviews during the beta and then when it gets updated fewer people will see it? idk how they sort all that.

[jaggysnake57]

my god apple did something and people agreed with it