Kickstart

Reviews & Ratings

Every Reviews & Ratings post from the Kickstart blog, condensed to its key points – skim the bullets, and read the full article when you want the detail.

When to call requestReview(): Apple’s rules and the timing that works

  • Three prompts per year: the system shows your request at most three times in any 365-day period, may suppress any individual call, and people can now disable in-app rating prompts globally – so nothing in your UI should depend on the prompt appearing.
  • Apple’s new guidance: the April 2026 Human Interface Guidelines for ratings and reviews say to wait at least a week or two between requests, and only re-ask after the person has demonstrated more engagement with your app.
  • Use the 2026 APIs: SKStoreReviewController is deprecated as of iOS 18 – UIKit and AppKit apps should call AppStore.requestReview(in:), while SwiftUI apps get the requestReview environment action from iOS 16 and macOS 13.
  • Ask right after the win: trigger the prompt immediately after your app’s “aha!” moment – their success, not yours – requiring around three wins first, adding a two-second delay so your success UI lands, and asking at most once per version with a date gate too.
  • Testing is misleading: development builds show the prompt every single time you call the API, while in TestFlight the call does nothing at all.
  • Skip the growth hacks: onboarding review prompts now risk rejection, “are you enjoying the app?” pre-prompts count as filtered feedback under Apple’s guidelines, and motivated fans should get a settings item that deep links with ?action=write-review instead.
Read the full article →