An analysis of nearly 12,000 app store reviews reveals a clear pattern: For many apps, the ratings from recent months are drastically lower than the overall rating. For over half of the apps examined, the discrepancy is more than one star.
Users searching for a new app in the App Store usually look at the overall rating. Five stars mean excellent, four stars still solid – and ratings above 4.5 stars seem like a seal of approval. But a recent analysis shows that this impression is often misleading. For many apps, the ratings from the last few weeks and months are dramatically worse than the overall rating accumulated over years.
The analysis, published on Reddit, is based on 11,923 English-language reviews of 228 iOS apps written between January 25 and April 14, 2026. For a meaningful evaluation, only apps with at least 30 recent reviews were considered – 114 apps met this criterion. The current average rating was then compared to the overall rating.
App Store: The numbers are clear
The result: For 51 percent of the apps, the current ratings deviate downwards by more than one star. In 24 percent of cases, the difference is even more than two stars. For three apps, the gap is three or more stars – a dramatic difference that almost completely reverses the overall impression of the app.
The discrepancy is particularly noticeable with AI apps, whose quality, according to reviewers, often falls short of advertising promises. But many well-known and otherwise highly rated apps also exhibit this pattern.
The most prominent examples
Among the most striking cases are several very popular apps:
- Microsoft Authenticator: Overall rating 4.70 – current 96 reviews only 1.41 stars
- Photoroom (AI photo editor): Overall rating 4.83 – current 108 reviews only 1.90 stars
- 1Password: Overall rating 4.55 – current 86 reviews only 1.77 stars
- Fabulous (Daily Habit Tracker): Overall rating 4.47 – current 135 reviews only 1.77 stars
- Headspace: Overall rating 4.81 – current 101 reviews only 2.16 stars
- NordVPN: Overall rating 4.63 – current 102 reviews only 2.20 stars
- Nextdoor: Overall rating 4.69 – current 150 reviews only 2.03 stars
- BetterSleep: Overall rating 4.72 – current 119 reviews only 2.69 stars
Subscription models and lack of updates are the main points of criticism
According to the analysis, the reasons for the decline are manifold, but two themes keep recurring. First, many apps have switched their pricing models from one-time purchases to subscriptions – which often causes frustration among users. Features that were previously paid for once now cost monthly or annually. Second, the lack of updates and the removal of features anger long-term users who had hoped for continuous development.
Both criticisms primarily concern established apps that want to monetize their business models – sometimes at the expense of user satisfaction.
This is how you can find the current ratings
Anyone wanting a realistic picture before downloading shouldn't rely on the overall rating. Instead, it's worth tapping on "Ratings & Reviews" on the app's page in the App Store. There, you can adjust the sorting so that the newest reviews are displayed first. Often, this reveals a completely different picture than what the star rating at the top suggests.
For App Store users, this is an important realization: An app's overall rating is a long-term average that goes back years. Users can only find out how good an app is today by taking the time to look at the most recent reviews. Apple itself could help here by better highlighting current ratings – however, so far there is no indication that the company is working on such changes. (Image: Shutterstock / MR SOCCER)
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