On Negative App Store Reviews During Betas of iOS and OS X ⇥ macstories.net

Nobody who actually needs this reminder will see this great article from Federico Viticci:

We all have to keep in mind, though, that developers get the short end of the stick here. When it comes to App Store reviews that point out issues on betas of iOS and OS X, there is nothing they can do. They can’t respond to them, they can’t release compatiblity and feature updates for public betas, and yet they’re left dealing with the outcome of negative reviews. These are smart folks, and they know that their apps have issues on beta versions of iOS and OS X. Not only it’s not useful to leave negative reviews for those problems now – it’s not fair to developers.

This is the first year that Apple has offered a public beta of iOS which is, by far, their most popular platform. I have long argued that they should be blocking reviews written from iOS developer betas, and I think it’s ridiculous that they’re not doing it for the public beta. No, it’s not going to stop a determined jackass from being a jackass, but it will prevent people casually leaving one star reviews for apps that don’t behave correctly in the beta.