Positive reviews on the App Store drive sales and downloads of apps, so it’s no wonder that iOS app developers like to inundate us with pop-ups that plead with us to “review this app”, “remind me later”, and occasionally give us a “No thanks” button that only delays the inevitable return of the pop-up in a week or so. The pop-ups can be mildly annoying or enough to make you delete an app. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a built-in way to stop being nagged by your iOS device so often? There is — and we’ll show you how to disable those rating and review pop-ups in this short article.
The ability to disable the app review and rating pop-ups was first beta-tested for iOS 10.3 in early 2017, although the feature didn’t actually appear until later. If you’ve updated to iOS 11, you’ll find that it’s quick and easy to switch off those pesky review and rating requests.
1) Launch the Settings app on your iOS device, then tap “iTunes & App Stores” to bring up those settings.
2) Scroll down a bit until you see the toggle switch for “In-App Ratings & Reviews” (see screenshot at right).
3) By default, this toggle is usually set to “enabled” and shows a green button. Tap on it to disable it, and it displays a white button like the one seen in the screenshot.
4) Exit Settings — you’re done!
This setting should help reduce the number of times you’ll see those rating and review pop-ups. Notice that I didn’t say “eliminate the pop-ups”. That’s because some apps do not use the standard Apple APIs to display a rating request and instead use a method created by the developer. As an example, there is one game app that I use that bugs me at least once every two game sessions to give it a rating or review — even though I have disabled “In-App Ratings and Reviews”! Apple’s developer guidelines may eventually force the issue, but at least for now there are still some apps that won’t respond to this method.
App ratings and reviews help developers to better understand their market and the features that delight — or irritate — their customers. If you really like or dislike an app, please consider spending a minute or two to rate and/or review the app. You can do so through the App Store in iOS.
On a side-note, Amazon purchases are getting annoyingly like this. I’m sometimes inundated by “How do you like XYZ” and “please leave a review for XYZ if you like it”. My favorite are the ones that promise free items if you leave a 5-star review.
I give 1-star reviews when a pop-up demands attention. If app demands a review then I honestly hate it.