With the release of iOS 10.3, iPhone and iPad developers will finally have a way to respond to user reviews within the app store.
Apple plans to implement the often requested feature, which has been available on the Android side of things for several years, once it completes beta testing 10.3 in the next month or two.
There are several reasons why it makes for Apple to allow developers to respond to App Store reviews. For users, a developer that responds to their feedback is usually a sign of an app that is not in danger of being abandoned.
Meanwhile, on the developer side, sometimes user feedback can be unfair or come from a place of ignorance. As such, the ability to engage with users when they’ve had a bad experience with one of their apps affords developers the opportunity to turn a negative outcome into a positive one.
That’s not the only review-related improvement Apple plans to add to iOS with 10.3. The company plans to limit how many times developers can solicit in-app review feedback from users to a maximum of three times a year. Also, once a user leaves a review, they can’t be prompted to review that same app again. Both of these are likely to reduce the nagging that kills the experience of using some apps.
iOS 10.3 will arrive as an over-the-air update later this year. 10.3 is also set to include a ‘Find my AirPods‘ feature.
[source]TechCrunch[/source]
