Apple Wants to Know What You Think

Apple quietly rolled out a small change with an interesting impact a couple of weeks ago. They made it possible to rate apps that come pre-installed on every iPhone, like the Calculator and Mail.

Ratings have become a good barometer for app quality and are also a deciding factor in how Apple and Google rank search results (aka. ASO). That's why many developers, big and small, are paying a lot more attention to their ratings and are working hard to keep their average high.

If you aren't, check this out.

Curious which apps users hate and which they love? I was too! Now that we're about 10,000 ratings in, I crunched the numbers and calculated the average rating for every pre-installed app globally.

The results were only somewhat surprising.

In total, I looked at 28 apps with a total of 9,709 ratings worldwide. The average rating across the entire portfolio was just 3.4, with the app most users like holding a 4.1 average while the one users seem to hate having a 2.2 star average.

Can you guess which apps those are?

Translate is the most hated pre-installed app, with a 2.1 average and 693 ratings. That's about 7% of all ratings. I don't use it often because it... isn't good. Contacts earned the most love with a 4.1 average and 159 ratings.

Mail, Podcasts, and News are rated under 3 stars, while FaceTime, Tips (that's right), Find My, and Voice Memos have a 4+ rating.

Check out the full list of 28 pre-installed apps and their ratings so far

Why Apple, Why??? This could be a regulatory move to make it seem like Apple doesn't have an unfair advantage for its apps, which now span a wide range of functions. It could also be that Apple really wants to know how users feel about its apps so it can decide which to prioritize for improvement. I want to believe the latter, but my gut says the former. Regardless, this will likely give Apple's apps more visibility in search results, which is something to keep an eye on if your app competes with any of them.