On the current version of iTunes, users can rate songs and albums by giving them up to five stars if you really like what you are hearing. A star rating system isn’t new and we’ve seen this applied to various rating systems for movies, video games, and so on. However could it be that Apple has decided that maybe they don’t want to rely on the star system anymore?
As spotted by Kirkville, in iTunes 12.5 and iOS 10, there does not appear to be the option to give star ratings anymore. In iTunes 12.5, users can still enable the star rating system, although it is no longer there by default, suggesting that Apple could be trying to phase it out. On iOS 10, it is a different story as the star system is gone completely.
In a way this makes sense. With Apple Music, Apple gave users the option of liking a song by giving it a “heart”. As per our previous report, iTunes 12.5 also introduced the ability to “dislike” a song, meaning that when it comes to rating a song, it’s a more binary process of either you like it or you dislike it, versus the star system where a 4/5 could mean you like it, but maybe not as much as a 5/5, or maybe a little bit more than a 3/5.
A binary system would make it easier for Apple Music’s recommendation algorithm to decide what songs you do or do not like. It is possible that since this is in beta that the star system could return in the final build, but in the meantime if it doesn’t, would you be sad to see it go?
Filed in . Read more about iTunes.