Apple has quietly begun allowing users to rate and review its built-in iPhone and iPad apps in the App Store with iOS 15
For the longest time, the App Store did not allow users to rate or review Apple's built-in iPhone and iPad apps, like Mail, Music, News, Stocks and Calculator.
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple had already shaped the review system for third-party developers, limiting how often apps can request ratings and adding ways to sort reviews by helpfulness and sentiment. Opening that same channel to Mail, Music, News, Stocks and Calculator removes a conspicuous exception from the App Store’s feedback rules.
The move arrives alongside an iOS 15 release whose core-app updates were a central part of the platform’s quality-of-life changes. It makes public App Store feedback a direct input into how Apple’s own bundled software is perceived.
First-order effects
- Users can now publish ratings and reviews for Apple’s built-in iPhone and iPad apps, giving the teams behind those apps a visible, App Store-native feedback record.
- Apple’s preinstalled apps are subject to the same review-discovery tools as other listings, including the review sorting options Apple had previously added.
Second-order effects
- Third-party developers competing with Mail, Music, News or Stocks gain a more comparable public benchmark for native-app satisfaction rather than facing unrated default alternatives.
- Apple’s app teams face a new reputational incentive to address recurring complaints in software that is distributed with iOS and iPadOS.
Third-order effects
- The App Store is becoming a more uniform accountability layer across Apple’s ecosystem: the platform owner increasingly governs both the review rules and the public feedback applied to its own apps.
- As Apple later adds AI-generated review summaries, the value of opening built-in apps to reviews extends beyond individual ratings to the review corpus that shapes discovery and product perception.
The trend: Apple is broadening the App Store from a distribution channel into a standardized feedback and discovery system that increasingly includes its own software.