How to Disable In-App Ratings & Reviews on iPhone & iPad

Have you ever used an app where you received random pop-ups out of nowhere asking you to rate their apps and write a review? Kind of annoying, right?

Most long-time iPhone and iPad users have probably closed dozens or even hundreds of annoying review request pop-ups that does nothing more than hamper the app usage experience. Apps that constantly ask for ratings and reviews are a nuisance for many users, and let’s be honest, how often have you actually rated these apps because of the review pop-ups?

Fortunately Apple has been taking notes, as they’ve added an option that allows users to disable these unnecessary in-app review pop-ups.

If you’re tired of these in-app review request pop-ups, then look no further. In this article, we’ll be discussing how you can easily disable in-app rating & review pop-ups on iPhone and iPad, within a matter of seconds.

How to Disable In-App Ratings & Reviews on iPhone & iPad

This feature was first made available to the beta users of iOS 10.3, but never really made it to the final version. However, Apple decided to add it to the stable version a few months later with the introduction of iOS 11, thus as long as you have a recent iOS or iPadOS version this feature will be available to you. So without further ado, let’s take a look at the necessary steps.

1. Open the “Settings” app from your iPhone or iPad home screen.
   
2. Now, scroll a little bit down and tap on “iTunes & App Store”
   
3. Here, if you scroll down you’ll see the option to turn off “In-App Ratings & Reviews”, which is enabled by default as you can see in the screenshot below. Simply tap on the toggle to disable the pop-ups.

That was all you had to do to stop those pesky review pop-ups from annoying you again. Quick and easy, right?

It’s worth noting here that disabling in-app ratings & reviews wouldn’t stop all your apps from displaying pop-ups. It’ll only work with the vast majority of the apps that have been updated to use Apple’s recent API, which restricts the apps to display no more than three such pop-ups within a 365-day period. Several older apps that haven’t been updated in a while will remain unaffected by the toggle and apps could still use other means to request for a rating or review.

Apple initially allowed developers to display pop-ups for ratings & reviews with the iOS 10.3 update, a couple of years ago. This allowed users to quickly rate the app without even having to leave the app and visit the App Store. Since then, several developers and apps have misused this functionality by repeatedly displaying pop-ups every now and then, especially when the user is in the middle of performing a task within the app. This was frustrating enough to make Apple update their guidelines just a year later.

According to the updated guidelines, Apple has advised developers to not be a pest with repeated prompts that could interrupt the user. They’ve also suggested developers to give users adequate time to get a hang of the app before showing the review request pop-up. This is understandable considering how several apps have been prompting users for a rating shortly after launching the app for the very first time. If users genuinely liked (or disliked) using an app, we’re pretty confident that a lot of them would go out of their way to write a review on the App Store, even if they weren’t prompted to do so.

Now that you’ve disabled such in-app review pop-ups, are you going to keep in-app ratings & reviews disabled permanently? Will it change the number of reviews you write for apps, if you write them at all in the first place? Let us know your thoughts and how you think developers should request users for ratings and reviews without hampering their users experience in the comments section down below.