The Verge drew attention to a strange change in the rating of the “Apple Podcasts” app. It took a little over a month for the rating to jump from 1.8 to 4.6 (on a five-point scale) without any visible fixes.
The rating continues to climb (already at 4.7), and it is noted that since November 9, the app has been receiving thousands of reviews, with the vast majority being “5 stars”.
Now, a 5-star review where a user shares impressions of a podcast (not the app): “Best podcast ever!!! I am so glad that my friend introduced me to this podcast...” sits right alongside a 1-star review (clearly about the app) that reads: “Irreparably broken. I used this app every day... but then Apple suddenly changed direction and completely removed the ability to download and store old podcast episodes and manage them as you see fit… I just do not understand why they needed to remove a core feature from one of their apps that is used by so many people. :(”
The journalist suggested that such reviews appeared as a result of confusion, when users thought they were rating a podcast rather than the app itself. However, this has not been observed with other apps. An Apple representative explained that since last month, Apple Podcasts has been prompting users to rate the app using the standard “Rating and Review” prompt available to all developers. Notably, the Apple representative agreed to comment only on the condition of anonymity.
This case showed that the rating system in Apple’s app store might not always work properly.
Epic Games head Tim Sweeney could not ignore the situation, writing on Twitter: “Will Apple ban the creators of this app for scamming the Apple review system? [Apple Podcasts is an Apple app]”