- App Store user ratings and reviews are flawed because the system was originally designed for songs, not software, leading to unfair and irrelevant reviews.
- Developers are not notified of new reviews and must manually check them, making it difficult to respond or get support from users.
- Reviews often focus on trivial issues like rating requests rather than app functionality, and many users are unqualified to write software reviews.
- Indie developers rely on positive ratings but face disproportionate negative self-initiated reviews, and Apple could mitigate this by handling rating requests itself.
- The system is vulnerable to fraud, especially for free apps, with fake ratings and reviews being sold, and Apple's efforts to prevent this are ineffective.
- Apple has not meaningfully updated the rating and review system in 18 years, and shows little interest in addressing these problems.