关于iTunes Store Customer Reviews API的三类技术问题咨询

Hey there, let's break down each of your questions clearly and practically:

1. Can I get global aggregated ratings and reviews? #

Unfortunately, the official API doesn't offer a built-in endpoint for global aggregated data. When you remove the /us/ segment, it defaults to the US store because that's Apple's fallback region for unqualified requests—there's no "global" toggle here.

To gather reviews and ratings from multiple regions, you'll need to make separate requests for each country by swapping out the region code in the URL. For example:

• US store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/rss/customerreviews/id=(APPID)/sortBy=mostRecent/json
• Japanese store: https://itunes.apple.com/jp/rss/customerreviews/id=(APPID)/sortBy=mostRecent/json
• UK store: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/rss/customerreviews/id=(APPID)/sortBy=mostRecent/json

After fetching data from all regions you care about, you'll have to handle the aggregation on your end—like calculating an overall average rating, combining review lists, or filtering by region as needed.

2. Can I modify the sorting rule for sortBy=mostRecent? #

Nope, Apple locks down the sortBy parameter to only two fixed values: mostRecent (sorted by submission date, newest first) and mostHelpful (sorted by user-voted helpfulness). There's no way to customize the sorting logic directly via the API.

If you need a different order—like sorting reviews by star rating (highest to lowest) or review length—you'll have to pull the full dataset first, then apply your custom sorting logic locally in your app.

3. Will an app monitoring reviews/ratings via this API get rejected by Apple? #

Using Apple's official iTunes Store RSS API for a review monitoring app is generally safe, and you shouldn't get rejected for "web scraping" reasons—this is a documented, public API provided by Apple for legitimate use cases.

That said, you need to stick to a few rules to avoid issues:

• Don't spam the API with excessive requests (stick to reasonable rate limits to avoid being throttled)
• Don't use the data for unauthorized purposes (like republishing reviews in a way that violates Apple's content policies, or using reviews for spam)
• Ensure your app complies with general App Store Review Guidelines (e.g., no misleading features, proper data privacy handling if you store review data)

As long as your app uses the API responsibly and focuses on a legitimate monitoring use case, rejection over API usage is unlikely.

内容的提问来源于stack exchange，提问作者iOS.Lover