Apple is adding AI-generated review summaries to the App Store with iOS 18.4. As Macworld notes, the latest developer beta for iOS and iPadOS adds short summaries of user reviews to some listings in the App Store.
These summaries are generated using big data language models to “compile the highlights and key information from user reviews into short paragraphs,” according to Apple’s developer site.
Following Apple’s lead, annotations use natural language to highlight what users are saying about an app, from positive reviews to negative ones. Apple says the summaries will be updated at least once a week as new reviews are added, and users will be able to press and hold on a review to report any issues with the feature.
Annotations will initially be available in the U.S. App Store for apps and games published in English, and only for those that have enough reviews to generate an annotation. They will be available in other countries and languages later this year.
Apple’s move follows Amazon’s plan to add AI-generated summaries to its e-commerce site in 2023 that highlight product highlights. These short paragraphs “highlight product features and customer insights that are frequently mentioned in written reviews” and appear above full reviews.
In theory, review summaries should be helpful, saving you from having to read through a bunch of reviews to get the “highlights.” But they could also potentially be useful for gaming, and will likely only encourage unscrupulous companies to fill the review sections.
In my experience with Amazon reviews, I’ve found that focusing on the positives first can come across as disingenuous. I make a living reviewing products, and if something is bad, that’s the very first thing I’ll say.
