Apple appears to be expanding on the native Apple Maps review functionality that it first introduced in iOS 14, allowing Apple Maps users in the United States the option to review places of interest, restaurants, and other locations.
In the Apple Maps app in iOS 14 and iOS 15, U.S. users can now see an option to provide a thumbs up or thumbs down for most locations. Tapping on the thumbs up/down icon brings up a secondary interface for providing thumbs up and thumbs down ratings for various categories like products, customer service, food, atmosphere, and more, based on the location being reviewed.
Users also have the option to upload photos of the location to the Apple Maps app to be added to the maps listing.
At the current time, the Apple Maps native rating system is displayed alongside the Yelp ratings that are provided for various locations. Apple may eventually be planning to replace Yelp and TripAdvisor integrations, but will need to build up a database of ratings before that will be possible.
There are no options for written reviews at this time, however, so it is not clear if Apple plans to entirely replace Yelp.
Native rating options in the Apple Maps app appear to be new for users in the United States, but Apple has been testing the feature in other countries like the UK and Australia for some time now. Ratings may also be available in additional countries based on the Ratings and Photos Terms legal site for Maps that was shared on Reddit.
Monday December 15, 2025 3:05 pm PST by Juli Clover
Software from an iPhone prototype running an early build of iOS 26 leaked last week, giving us a glimpse at future Apple devices and iOS features. We recapped device codenames in our prior article, and now we have a list of some of the most notable feature flags that were found in the software code.
In some cases, it's obvious what the feature flags are referring to, while some are more...
Monday December 15, 2025 2:05 pm PST by Juli Clover
Last week, details about unreleased Apple devices and future iOS features were shared by Macworld. This week, we learned where the information came from, plus we have more findings from the leak.
As it turns out, an Apple prototype device running an early build of iOS 26 was sold, and the person who bought it shared the software. The OS has a version number of 23A5234w, and the first...
Monday December 15, 2025 4:23 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple is testing iOS 26.3, the next version of iOS 26 that will launch around January. Since iOS 26.3's testing is happening over the holidays, it is a smaller update with fewer features than we've seen in prior betas.
We've rounded up what's new so far, and we'll add to our list with subsequent betas if we come across any other features.
Transfer to Android
Apple is making it simpler...
Friday December 12, 2025 10:56 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Macworld's Filipe Espósito today revealed a handful of features that Apple is allegedly planning for iOS 26.4, iOS 27, and even iOS 28.
The report said the features are referenced within the code for a leaked internal build of iOS 26 that is not meant to be seen by the public. However, it appears that Espósito and/or his sources managed to gain access to it, providing us with a sneak peek...
The first foldable iPhone will feature a series of design and hardware firsts for Apple, according to details shared by the Weibo leaker known as Digital Chat Station.
According to a new post, via machine translation, Apple is developing what the leaker describes as a "wide foldable" device, a term used to refer to a horizontally oriented, book-style foldable with a large internal display....
Tuesday December 16, 2025 8:44 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Next year's iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max will be equipped with under-screen Face ID, and the front camera will be moved to the top-left corner of the screen, according to a new report from The Information's Wayne Ma and Qianer Liu.
As a result of these changes, the report said the iPhone 18 Pro models will not have a pill-shaped Dynamic Island cutout at the top of the screen....
Monday December 15, 2025 7:41 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple released the AirPods Max on December 15, 2020, meaning the over-ear headphones launched five years ago today. While the AirPods Max were updated with a USB-C port and new color options last year, followed by support for lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio this year, the headphones lack some of the features that have been introduced for newer generations of the regular AirPods and the ...
Tuesday December 16, 2025 11:06 am PST by Joe Rossignol
We have been covering iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 17e, and iPhone Fold details from The Information's report about future iPhone models, and next up is the iPhone Air 2.
The report says that Apple aims to make the iPhone Air 2 more attractive in two ways.
First, Apple is apparently considering adding a second rear camera to the device, which would resolve a key limitation. The current iPhone...
The worst is when you want to look at more than 3 pictures from the restaurant and it takes you to the App Store to redownload Yelp. This will be a welcome addition, I just wish they allowed text to be inputted so we can fully replace Yelp!
Finally, I hate having to open the Yelp app just to read a review or see some pictures. Sometimes deciding between two restaurants or which landmark to visit in a short trip is based on reviews, I think this feature is great.
This is stupid, why build what they can just buy? They should just have bought Yelp. With all the weird and confusing acquisitions all these companies do throughout the years, seems the more obvious ones escape them.
On the flip side, why buy something you can build and source yourself?
This is stupid, why build what they can just buy? They should just have bought Yelp. With all the weird and confusing acquisitions all these companies do throughout the years, seems the more obvious ones escape them.
Yelp reviews aren’t entirely reliable because people go to review sites/apps for two primary reasons:
A. They’re looking for reviews B. They had a bad experience and want to complain
The third and just as important reason isn’t compelling enough to visit a site/app and spend time reviewing: they liked the place.
Ditching the star system is the first good move. A simple thumbs up or down, is going to yield a more universal standard. Written reviews almost always skew negative. People generally write good reviews if the place was off the charts amazing or if they were given an incentive (monetary, promotional, discounts).
Finally, reviews are only as reliable as the most recent ones. Good reviews from years ago may not mean much if the place hasn’t renovated in a long while, the rotating staff of waiters are currently lazy/rude and the star chef hasn’t worked there in a while. Similarly, bad reviews might’ve compelled a business to improve or the place was so bad that it has shut down. So a back catalogue of reviews isn’t all that valuable. Yelp doesn’t have much of an edge due to its ”head start”.
All of this comes together as poor data quality and so Apple doesn’t need Yelp to gradually assemble a more accurate sense of reviews. With its established user base of hundreds of millions, and with the ratings built in natively, Apple can get recent reviews rather quickly. Ultimately, being natively integrated, that picture you took of a steak dinner can be recognized as food by Photos’ machine learning and correlated to the GPS coordinates of a restaurant you went to. A simple prompt by Siri “Did you like it?” with a thumbs up/down, can help Apple fill in those reviews over a short period of time.
UPDATE: This just showed up for me in Canada. I’m a Canadian user with a Canadian Apple ID on iOS 15 Beta 6 Looks like we’re getting a wider rollout.
Yeah I hate seeing Yelp reviews in Maps. I hope this means that Yelp is going away sooner rather than later.
Yelp does nothing but ruin honest businesses with their predatory practices. I am hoping the Apple solution will be little more tolerable for small business owners.
