Apple to Start Providing Summaries of User Reviews in App Store

[turbineseaplane]

This is a big mistake. AI would not tell what is wrong with app and will just tell “generally ok”. Perfect feature for botfarms and unfair developers.

Can you tell by 5 star rating that app actually lags? Or maybe that it doesn’t work the way it is advertised. Anyway, feature won’t be much useful since it will not count negative and critical reviews

That's why they are doing it
Apple just wants "number to go up"

According to the summaries, ALL the Apps are "mostly great!" ... "buy and subscribe now!"

 

[Fuzzball84]

Most of the Apps on App Store are AAA trash. While the highlight the number of apps… a tiny fraction of them are of any use and well made. And if I ever do look on App Store, it might be to check out if there are any decent games to play on the go, but most of them are trash too. Free but with in app purchases etc advertising too. Some not updated in years

The only Apps I use are from major software developers (Apple, Microsoft), streaming and content companies, banks, retailers, store chains etc everything else is garbage.

The only time I might go back and buy games is if they released an updated iPod touch with optional add on physical input. Kind of like a mini switch.. and if AAA developers got on board. At the moment it’s trash.

 

[Fuzzball84]

That's why they are doing it
Apple just wants "number to go up"

According to the summaries, ALL the Apps are "mostly great!" ... "buy and subscribe now!"

It’s garbage in garbage out. If the reviews for an App are not genuine or generally of poor quality, the AI summary will be equally of poor quality and representation of the product.

 

[Prince Akeem]

I don't quite get this move. Most reviews in the App Store are either very short or don't even have text, just stars. Let alone the abundant overload of fake ones. When I actively go through reviews for an app - which means I'm genuinely interested or a user of the app already - I actually appreciate it when there's finally someone who's written a more comprehensive review.

So, why summarize?

 

[turbineseaplane]

So, why summarize?

To spin the narratives and keep things "mostly positive"

The Apple & Dev incentives are all aligned with that

 

[JustSomebody12]

I find it quite good with Amazon reviews actually.

What?

 

[Seoras]

Speaking as an independent App developer I'm intrigued but also slightly worried.
I find that app users who leave reviews are too often the minority with an axe to grind or trying to use their 1 star review as leverage to get everything for free.
They seem to think that the promise of changing from 1 star to 5 stars is incentive enough for me to make it completely free. Sure I can eat stars and pay bills with them. 🤦‍♂️
The written reviews are proportionately biased towards the complainers.
I have an app with thousands of 5 star reviews but only 100 or less 1 star reviews netting a 4.7 average but if you were to read the reviews alone you'd might think it was 2 or 3 star crap app.
See the problem?
AI really needs to take into account the rating as much as the "ranting".

 

[peneaux]

They should get rid of fake reviews. But it’s hard. Just like Instagram followers. Hard to catch.

What I do is look for the latest app review. Least likely to have a fake and it is good to know if the product turned to garbage (like 1password or Fantastical).

Fake reviews are sent in a period of a month usually. So it’s a good indicator that those are fake.

 

[slb]

They could hire actual human beings to write these summaries and give them a unique human voice, but corporations are using AI to avoid humans completely. We're living in a dystopia.

 

[svish]

Hopefully it works well. Should be useful.

 

[Haiku_Oezu]

The Microsoft store does this and I actually like it
AI is usually prompted to be positive hosted so I wouldn’t be surprised if summaries end up sugar coating things