SKStoreReviewController requestReview() may or may not present and alert?

Question

I'm taking a look at the new requestReview() API that uses SKStoreReviewController. The documents state:

"Although you should call this method when it makes sense in the user experience flow of your app, the actual display of a rating/review request view is governed by App Store policy. Because this method may or may not present an alert, it's not appropriate to call it in response to a button tap or other user action."

Does anyone have any experience using this API. What exactly are the factors that determine if the rating view is shown or not? I'm guessing it's not shown if called too frequently.. Anybody have any insight on this? Thanks!

Fancie

It's a beta API, so you will need to watch for changes before it's released. But here is an article that claims it will be limited to three displays per year: loopinsight.com/2017/01/24/… – Clamber

Where did you get that quote? Which documents? Thanks. – Antineutron

Answer 1

You're right that it won't show if called too frequently.

SKStoreReviewController will only allow prompting a user to review your application 3 times at most, even if you ship more versions than that during the year.

There might be more restrictions beneath the surface as well.
Source: http://daringfireball.net/2017/01/new_app_store_review_features

Kalvn

The question I have is, will Apple handle spreading them out over the year? Or is it a simple cap? The way I was planning on using this is to call it after every game over, but I don't want to waste my 3 requests all in one sitting. – Box

Good question, here's a sentence from the guidelines that suggest they do spread it out for you: "If the user hasn't already given feedback and a request hasn't been made too recently, the system displays an in-app prompt that asks for a rating and an optional written review." developer.apple.com/ios/human-interface-guidelines/interaction/… – Kalvn

Answer 2

According to iOS Human Interace Guildelines

The system automatically limits the display of the prompt to three occurrences per app within a 365-day period.

Libriform

Finally an apple doc which states the limitation of the popup. – Reticent

Link broken, here is a new one stating the same thing: developer.apple.com/ios/human-int… – Harshman

Fixed the broken link. – Libriform