More than a year after Google first announced the change
Android apps aren’t just limited to the smartphone in your pocket. Your tablet, smartwatch, television, and even your laptop all support a wide variety of software you rely on daily, often with a version specific to that form factor. Of course, this diversity in gadgets also limits how useful ratings on the Play Store really are — after all, if a specific application features poor tablet optimizations, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be the same on a smartphone. With a long-awaited change, Google is making its Play Store ratings more useful across the board for all the gadgets in your life.
As spotted by Esper.io’s Mishaal Rahman, Google has confirmed that application ratings are now based on device types, as announced through a message to developers on the Play Store console. This change has been a long time coming — in fact, it was initially meant to arrive earlier this year. Google first spoke about these plans in August of 2021, setting an “early 2022” time window for when we’d finally see device-matching ratings go live. As of today, it’s finally live.
Left: Xbox app on Pixel 6. Right: Xbox app on Galaxy Z Fold 4.
Right now, if you head to any app on the Play Store, you should see a notice in the “Ratings and reviews” section confirming that these scores are “from people who use the same type of device as you use.” This doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll see unique averages, though the number of reviews counted will almost always differ depending on the device you’re using. For example, my Pixel 6 shows nearly 1.5 million ratings for the Xbox app, a number matched by other various Android phones. But on the Galaxy Z Fold 4, I see just over 100,000 ratings, as Google recognizes it as a tablet. The app has a 4.4-star rating on both platforms, but it’s clear that different metrics are being counted here for a unique form factor.
Ultimately, it’s a small change that could make a big impact on how users download apps today. As Android continues to expand into new product categories, ensuring that the Play Store ratings are accurate for watches, tablets, and everything else is an essential step.
