The Ultimate Disappearing Act: App Store Bug Wipes Out 22 Million App Ratings And Reviews |
Posted: December 11, 2019 |
One fell sweep, and millions of app ratings and reviews just disappeared from the App store itself. The incident occurring between 23rd October to 29th October, the bug issue on the app platform by Apple itself affected the app ratings and reviews on a global scale and removed both positive and negative reviews from the app ratings and reviews section. Even though the US was hit the hardest, other countries were not far behind. The ratings and reviews of almost 300 apps by 200 big and small ios app development services were hit the hardest. A few of the affected countries are China, the UK, Australia and many more. Around 155 countries that support apple have been affected by this bug issue. Wiping out a grand total of 22 million reviews, the bug reduced around 50% of reviews from the affected apps list including all countries, such as the US. Some of the most popular apps in 2019 were involved in this problem. Apps such as Google, Microsoft, Hulu has been seriously affected by this problem. However, there are some applications that have been more affected than others. Out of all the apps in the market, it was Hulu that took the hardest hit, losing around 95% of the reviews on the app store. In the second place were Dropbox and Chase, losing about 85% of reviews. There are many other apps that fell victim to this technical problem, and these apps are- Walgreens, Amazon Prime Video, Southwest, Hotel.com, Starbucks, Disneyland and many other big names. However, there are many smaller apps created by iPhone and iPad app development services that were affected negatively. It goes without saying that the affected apps suffered because of this lost reviews problems. Many apps dropped one or two stars from their review section, which affected their visibility and download numbers. They are either not appearing on the search results or not being installed by users due to their low ratings. Many app development companies for apple devices, such as iPhone experienced the negative effect of this bug. Even though this negative effect may not cause serious harm to the big names, the smaller apps of various startups and small companies, who hired app developers to have their app developed and launched are going to be seriously harmed by this. The early assumption was that Apple was trying to clean up fake reviews from the store. However, soon it became clear that was not the situation, because it was Apple trying to clean up fake reviews then it would only be the fake positive reviews that will disappear. In this case, it was both positive and negative reviews that got cleaned up. This incident is nothing new, as it has happened before when another App store bug wiped up app ratings and reviews. However, Apple never released any statements regarding that issue. This time, however, the spokesperson has come forward and let us know that it was during regular maintenance to keep up the ios app security and integrity that the bug entered the system. But the good news is that the ratings and reviews have not been deleted permanently and have been restored by October 29th. Apple has always been famous for its app security and vetting process. However, this incident is a serious thing to worry about as it not only affects the efforts of countless app developers around the world, but it also affects the security and integrity of the platform itself. While the previous incident went without any comments, this one was widespread enough to be noticed and commented upon. Here’s to hoping that app developers and owners don’t have to face something like this again in the future.
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