Apple Introduces AI-Generated App Store Review Summaries in iOS 18.4 Beta

AI-Powered Summaries Are Coming to the App Store, Too

There are nearly two million apps on the iOS App Store, and a lot of them aren't worth your time. That's why many of us, when considering a new app, turn to reviews: You want to see what other users' experiences were like with the app -- whether they loved it, liked it, or loathed it. Personally, the current review system works fine for me. I scan some reviews, and generally get a sense of whether the app is right for me. If I'm feeling particularly analytical, I'll even adjust the filters, perhaps to see which reviews are most critical (so it's not just a bunch of fluff) or ones that are most recent, to see what customers thought of the latest version of the app. But it's 2025, which means one thing: AI. We can't continue to live in the past. We must embrace the future of artificial intelligence, so say the tech companies. Why do 30 seconds of scanning, when the AI can cut that work down to 20 seconds? Perhaps even 15? With iOS 18.4, currently in beta, Apple is testing AI-generated summaries for reviews in the App Store. According to Apple, these summaries pull from "highlights and key information" from reviews for apps and games and are updated at least once a week, if the app or game has enough reviews to support it. These summaries will appear directly beneath the rating for the app or game, under the heading "Reviews Summary." Apple says review summaries are currently only available in English for a "limited number of apps and games" in the United States. The company plans to expand the feature to more countries and languages over the year. Here's the thing about features like this: they're largely ignorable. If you love them, great! You can take a peek at the AI-generated summary and decide for yourself whether you'd like to read the reviews further. If you don't like them, also great! Scroll right past to the reviews. That latter approach is likely the one I'd take. For one, I don't trust AI to get the gist right, even if the situation is relatively low-stakes. But, like I alluded to earlier, I also don't think it saves that much time to read an AI summary versus scanning the reviews yourself. You might even miss some interesting insights the AI thought wasn't important enough to make the review, or see some nuance that went over the AI's, uh, "head." Apple is far from the only company to summarize reviews with AI. Google, Amazon, even NewEgg have all dabbled in this practice, so it's not like Apple is breaking the mold here. But it does slightly rub me the wrong way -- if we start relying on AI to summarize content like this, who is the original content being written for? Hundreds if not thousands of people are writing reviews of their experience, but if you only read the summary, those people are really writing their reviews for the AI -- not other human beings. iOS 18.4 is due out sometime in April. You can experience these summaries now if you install the beta, but if you'd prefer not to risk running temperamental software on your iPhone, you can simply wait until next month.

Apple Is Making It Easier to Decide What Apps to Buy, With a Little Help From AI

I'm a Die-Hard Apple Fan, but These 5 Android Features Make Me Jealous With the latest update to iOS (18.4), you'll no longer need to read countless reviews before deciding whether to download an app. Instead, you'll be able to just read the AI-generated review summary for that app before taking the plunge. Apple Starts Summarizing Reviews Using AI Anyone who regularly buys anything from Amazon (and that's surely everyone reading this) will be aware of AI-generated review summaries. They sit atop the pile of reviews offering a summary, saving you from having to read the reviews in full. Related How Amazon's AI Review Summaries Will Make Shopping Decisions Easier Trawling through reviews to make sure a product is the right option can be tedious. But Amazon's AI review summaries are here to make things easier. Posts And now, with the release of iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4, Apple is following in Amazon's footsteps. App Store review summaries are one of a number of new features outlined on the Apple Developer website (as first spotted by Macworld). As you can see from Apple's example below, the review summaries will attempt to sum up people's feelings about an app in a single paragraph using natural language. They should also highlight what people wrote in both positive and negative reviews. Apple's App Store review summaries are being generated using large language models (LLMs). The summaries will be refreshed at least once a week for apps that have garnered enough reviews to justify providing a summary. Apple's review summaries are currently only available to beta testers in English in the United States on a limited number of apps and games. However, all being well, they will become available to more people when iOS 18.4 rolls out generally in April. And then expand even further through the course of 2025. Probably the most common use for AI right now is feeding an LLM a lot of information, and then having it summarize that information. So, with that in mind, it's no surprise to see Apple using AI in this manner. Essentially, it's a low-hanging fruit in the AI world; easy to engineer and with obvious, real-world benefits to users. Related What Are Large Language Models (LLMs) and How Do They Work? Generative AI is all the rage, but how does a large language model work? Posts AI Review Summaries Seem Easy to Game The biggest issue with AI-generated review summaries is the ease with which they can be gamed. To be fair, all reviews can be gamed to a certain extent, with some unscrupulous app developers employing bots or paid shills to praise their products. However, given that these AI-generated review summaries will pick up on the most common remarks, the potential for further gaming of the system is clear. Especially if they discourage people from reading detailed reviews (which may include more caveats and negative comments) in full.

Apple adds AI-powered app review summaries with iOS 18.4 | TechCrunch

As part of the iOS 18.4 software update, currently in public beta, Apple is introducing AI-powered summaries of App Store reviews. The new feature will leverage Apple Intelligence, the company's built-in AI technology, to offer an overall summary based on the reviews others have left on the App Store. The review summaries will be generated by large language models (LLMs) and will highlight key information into a short paragraph, Apple's website explains. The summaries will also be refreshed weekly for apps and games that have enough reviews to generate a summary -- though Apple did not say what that threshold is. App Store users can tap and hold on the review to report any problems with the feature while app developers can alert Apple to problems via App Store Connect. AI summaries will first be in the U.S. in English and will later roll out to all apps with a sufficient number of reviews in additional markets and languages over the course of the year. It will also be available in iPadOS 18.4. The feature, first spotted by Macworld in the recent beta release, may encourage unscrupulous app developers to flood their ratings and review sections with fake reviews left by bots or other paid commenters who praise the app or game or make positive remarks about its features or pricing. While this sort of thing is unfortunately already a common practice in the app industry -- or really, any on any site that offers customer reviews of a product -- adding AI summaries could worsen the problem. Consumers may begin to rely too heavily on the review summary itself instead of more carefully reading through all reviews, both good and bad. The feature also tests the ability of Apple's AI to carefully extract and parse any negative comments or concerns in the App Store reviews and highlight them for customers in these AI summaries. Apple is not the only tech giant to look to AI for analyzing reviews. Amazon introduced AI summaries for product reviews on its platform back in 2023. Google's Gemini AI can also be used for product reviews summaries, as one developer tutorial explains. The company also added AI-powered review summaries in Google Maps last year. While the AI summaries are available now to beta testers with the latest release (iOS 18.4, beta 2 and iPadOS 18.4, beta 2), the feature will reach the general public in April when the new software rolls out to all. Other anticipated features include an expanded set of Apple Intelligence languages that are supported, access to Apple Intelligence for EU users, access to Visual Intelligence on the iPhone 15 Pro, new Control Center options for Siri, and an AI-powered feature to prioritize important notifications over others.

iOS 18.4 to Include AI-Generated Review Summaries in App Store

Apple has begun rolling out AI-generated summaries of App Store reviews in the latest iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 beta releases. The feature uses large language models to analyze user reviews and condense common themes into a short paragraph. First spotted by Macworld, the AI summaries appear just above the user reviews section on app listings. As part of a phased rollout, Apple says the summaries are only available for English-language reviews "for a limited number of apps and games" in the US. Apple plans to expand support to additional languages and regions "over the course of the year," according to information on Apple's developer website. Not all apps will receive review summaries at launch. Apple requires apps to have a sufficient number of user reviews to generate a meaningful summary, though the company hasn't specified the exact threshold. To help keep the feature accurate, both developers and users can report problematic summaries. Developers can submit reports through App Store Connect, while users can tap and hold on a summary to flag issues. Apple notes that summaries will be refreshed at least once a week to incorporate recent feedback. The processing appears to be cloud-based rather than on-device, as identical summaries display across different Apple devices. Apple hasn't confirmed that devices supporting Apple Intelligence will be a requirement. The move follows similar AI summary features already available on other platforms. Amazon introduced AI-powered product review summaries in 2023, while Google added review summaries to Maps last year. The likelihood of AI summaries coming to app reviews in the App Store was first reported in October. iOS 18.4 beta 2 also introduces several other features, including Priority Notifications, Visual Intelligence for iPhone 15 Pro, new Shortcuts actions, and a standalone Apple Vision Pro app. The update is expected to roll out to all users in April. An outline of all of the new features in iOS 18.4 can be found in our iOS 18.4 features guide.

Despite the controversy, Apple is bringing AI summaries to the App Store

After all the trouble caused by Apple's AI summaries for news apps like the BBC and the New York Times, Apple is coming back for more. The company has announced that "review summaries" are officially coming to the App Store, aiming to squish the most common points from hundreds or thousands of reviews into one AI-generated summary. First spotted by Macworld, Apple has announced the coming feature on its developer site. The beta will start in iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 as part of a phased rollout, beginning with English-only summaries for a limited number of apps. Recommended Videos Apple says the summaries will be refreshed at least once a week and will eventually appear for every app "with enough reviews." It doesn't mention how many reviews are considered "enough," but we might get more information in the future. Please enable Javascript to view this content As with a lot of AI summary features, this sounds like it could be useful if it can be trusted. However, it's only been a few weeks since Apple's AI incorrectly told people that Luigi Mangione had shot himself -- a perfect example of just how wrong AI can be about fairly important things. Generating summaries for app reviews might not cause as much trouble as incorrect news headlines, but they could hurt app developers if things go wrong. If a summary accidentally includes an extreme opinion that only appeared in one out of thousands of reviews or just hallucinates something entirely, then app developers could find themselves losing out on downloads and purchases for no good reason. Such inaccuracies wouldn't benefit users either since they could miss out on a good app or end up downloading something that isn't as good as the review summary made it out to be. Let's see how this goes.

You Can See AI-Powered Review Summaries in App Store With iOS 18.4 Beta 2

Only those apps with enough number of reviews will generate summaries iOS 18.4 Beta 2 update was released for iPhone developers and testers on Monday. The update brings much-awaited visual intelligence features to compatible smartphones. It also includes another artificial intelligence (AI) feature that will enable users to quickly understand the overall summary of apps and games in the App Store. Dubbed Review Summaries, the feature will be part of the Apple Intelligence suite, and will be available in all devices that support the technology. Alongside, the App Store now also supports natural language search queries. According to the tech giant, the iOS 18.4 Beta 2 update is adding a new Apple Intelligence feature to the App Store. Review Summaries essentially compile information from individual reviews left by users on an app or a game to create a comprehensive summary. Such review summaries will enable users to quickly get an idea about the app without having to spend hours scrolling through the reviews. The iPhone maker highlighted that the AI tool picks highlights and key information from each user review, and then uses large language models (LLMs) to generate the summary. Apple did not mention the AI models being used to power this feature. To help users understand that this is an AI-generated content, each summary will be underlined with the text "Automatically summarised from reviews." Review Summaries will be refreshed at least once a week, the company stated. However, these will only appear for apps and games that have enough reviews to support generating a summary. Apple did not reveal any minimum threshold of reviews the apps need to reach to enable the feature. Notably, the AI feature is being rolled out in a phased manner, and currently it is only available in the English language for a limited number of apps and games on the App Store. It is also only available to users in the US. Apple highlighted that Review Summaries will be expanded to all apps with sufficient number of reviews over the year. The company will also add the summaries in additional languages and other storefronts. Additionally, with this update, Apple is also adding natural language search capability to the App Store. Users will be able to search for apps and games using their description, features, or functionality, and the AI will find the relevant results. This feature is also available in English for a limited number of apps and games in the US.

Apple Intelligence could solve my App Store pet peeve, but I'm skeptical

Table of Contents Table of Contents A potential gamechanger Not a foolproof solution It's no secret that Apple's App Store has its problems, but it generally works pretty well. Yet there's one thing about it that just feels absolutely useless: the reviews section. Apple highlights a few reviews on each app's page, but infuriatingly, they're often from many years ago. It's not uncommon to see reviews complaining about issues that have long-since been fixed, yet they still get highlighted. When your initial impression is based on completely inappropriate information, it makes the review section borderline useless and is a terrible way to sum up information about an app. Recommended Videos Dive into an app's review section and you get to see the full contingent of user evaluations. When you do this, you'll usually see that Apple has sorted the reviews by "most helpful." But how can a review be deemed "most helpful" if it's from half a decade ago and is no longer relevant? In other words, the App Store's reviews section needs a serious revamp. Browsing apps on my Mac, it's far too common for me to see unhelpful reviews being touted as the most appropriate appraisal of an app or game. Nine times out of ten, it's plain to see that that's far from the truth. A potential gamechanger Now, it looks like a fix is on the way: artificial intelligence (AI) summaries. News outlet Macworld recently discovered that Apple is testing this change in iOS 18.4 beta 2, which you can download now if you have a developer account (it's unknown if they're available on macOS yet). These AI summaries were teased in late 2024, and are currently appearing to users in the US on eligible app and game pages. They use Apple Intelligence to round up past reviews into a summary that appears under the app's review score. In Macworld's example, an AI summary for ChatGPT read: "Users say the app is helpful and convenient. They appreciate its ability to answer questions and its fast response times. They also praise its advanced voice mode." This feature could be a potential gamechanger. It might mean you no longer have to filter through outdated and irrelevant reviews to understand what people think of an app or game. Instead, all the key information would be right there on the app's main page, without you needing to dive into the reviews at all. If it works, it could put paid to my main gripe with the App Store. By seeing a summary of reviews instead of a single paragraph, your first impression of an app will no longer be tainted by whatever obsolete and unhelpful review Apple's opaque algorithm decides to serve up first. And that could make App Store pages far more useful than they are right now. Not a foolproof solution All that said, I'm not expecting this to be a foolproof solution. After all, this new feature relies on Apple Intelligence's summarization abilities. As we've learned already when it spectacularly failed to summarize stories posted by BBC News, these synopses can be highly inaccurate and prone to mistakes. We also need more information on how exactly these summaries will work. How much weight will they give to old reviews? Will they include reviews at all if they're over a certain age? My concern is that summaries could incorporate complaints that were addressed years ago, thereby resurfacing information that ends up misleading readers. It's also important to remember that there are other glaring issues in the App Store that this AI feature won't be able to fix. Search results often turn up totally unrelated apps and games, or they show ads more prominently above your actual search results, further muddying the waters. The App Store review process, meanwhile, has proven to be capricious and overzealous, and that's something that AI summaries won't put right. Still, this move by Apple might be a step in the right direction. App Store reviews desperately need attention, and it's good that Apple is focusing its eye on them. Time will tell if Apple Intelligence is the right way to fix this problem.