App Store Surfacing Old Reviews From as Early as 2008 for Some Users

[Col4bin]

It’s disgusting that Apple removed functionality in the iOS App Store that allows a user to sort an app by it’s “most recent release”. TC protecting that App Store revenue stream by limiting the transparency of some dev’s flaws? Are the numbers down? Shameful business practice.

 

[JohnMcApp]

We really need to understand what's behind this change. Our app shows 1 star reviews on top of the reviews from years ago which are not relevant anymore. Also the main app rating stars report x number of reviews for the current version but they are nowhere to be found..?!?! Even if we assume there is an AI involved but people are interested to read most recent reviews and at least the current version reviews... We do get new reviews in ITuneConnect but they show up somewhere on the bottom of the list after scrolling through hundreds of reviews?
Speaking of design.. Most reviews are pretty long and the "Developer Response" gets hidden. So unless someone clicks on read more, then they wouldn't see the dev response. I am sure every dev is affected and we really would like to hear Apple comment about it.. We pay Apple to provide such service to us and we have a legal contract with Apple. If Apple does something that negatively affect us, then we might have a case to legally pursue..

Our Sales have gone down 40% since the new App Store launch...

 

[Foxglove9]

Our Sales have gone down 40% since the new App Store launch...

Thanks for posting that. I've been curious to learn how all these changes are impacting developers.

 

[JohnMcApp]

Thanks for posting that. I've been curious to learn how all these changes are impacting developers.

Here's our Sales Chart.. You can see how its been dropping since the change started in iOS 10 App Store and then iOS 11 new App Store!

 

[mikehoopes]

I’ve noticed that the version history for several apps is showing the most recent couple of updates as happening minutes ago, instead of the usual days, weeks, or months. Not a big deal by itself, but with this old reviews problem I wonder if it indicates some sort of chronological issue with the App Store.

I think they’re using a proprietary shorthand for months that is easily confused with minutes: 11m = 11 months in the App Store, and 11m = 11 minutes EVERYWHERE ELSE ON EARTH.

 

[LincolnsiPod]

I'm stunned by how many things have been wrecked by the new updates. I can no longer browse app reviews within the iTunes store, which might have been a loss of convenience, but in addition to that I'm completely unable to sort the reviews within the app store on my iPhone. The reviews just show randomly and there's absolutely no way to sort them like I used to.

The inexplicable loss of functionality (in addition to annoying bugs) is despicable.

 

[slooksterPSV]

You can definitely tell it is an older review just by the usage of the word "woot"

Woot! I bought an iPhone se last month woot! Hahaha

 

[mikehoopes]

2017-11-05: Not fixed yet. Literally makes app reviews useless for me. 8-yr-old reviews of MotionX GPS aren’t helpful at all.

 

[TwoBytes]

Completely useless reviews. Apple have made this impossible to se what an app is like as you get reviews from so long ago, the app was completely different. Thanks apple. What a cluster f

 

[eagleglen]

Why are we at the iOS 11.2 beta 3 and still no fix for this ‘bug’? Did Apple ever give a response?

 

[Counting Steps]

This is so annoying, when is it going to be fixed?
Also, just recently I'm getting old updates for apps showing up again, most are dated 2016, but one was from 2015!
What's that all about?

 

[RCC1028]

This is so annoying, when is it going to be fixed?
Also, just recently I'm getting old updates for apps showing up again, most are dated 2016, but one was from 2015!
What's that all about?

I have 5 updates from 2015 for ios 9, 2 from 2016 for touch id. Along with not being able to sort reviews this is a total loss of functionality.

 

[DavidQPR]

Apple have still not fixed it. I just looked at reviews of copilot and some of the first you see are from five years ago. Ridiculous

 

[C DM]

I’ve noticed that the version history for several apps is showing the most recent couple of updates as happening minutes ago, instead of the usual days, weeks, or months. Not a big deal by itself, but with this old reviews problem I wonder if it indicates some sort of chronological issue with the App Store.

I had the same initial impression but I think when it says “m” it’s supposed to mean months. And they probably won’t have minutes. Probably “today” or “1d” would show up for days but I believe M is months
[doublepost=1506551255][/doublepost]
What? Please explain more in detail so I can figure out how to do this. Thank you

D’oh! You’re right, “m” is months, “y” is years, “w” is weeks and “h” is hours. Maybe they just tweaked the format in iOS 11 which threw me for a curve.

I think they’re using a proprietary shorthand for months that is easily confused with minutes: 11m = 11 months in the App Store, and 11m = 11 minutes EVERYWHERE ELSE ON EARTH.

Looks like that part of it all has been fixed/tweaked as for months it now shows "mo" instead of just "m".