After plenty of feedback from app developers and their users alike, the Google Play Store will soon begin letting everyone filter reviews and ratings based on where users are. Publishers will also be able to better track ratings by device type.

Starting in November, Play Store users on phones will see app ratings based on the average of submissions from only the country they’re registered in, not the world. Sometime early next year, displayed ratings will narrow further based on device categories including tablets and foldables, Chrome OS, Wear, and Auto.

Google Play staff say these distinctions will better represent where an app may operate and motivate app makers to focus on where specific problems might lie such as a translation issue or mismatched dimensions. That said, certain issues that may cross those borders should be reflected in visible reviews and calculated into the ratings we see — perhaps more feedback is needed to get a filter toggle in there.

Publishers will be notified at least 10 weeks ahead of any user-facing rating changes in the Play Store so that they can see how perceptions of their app may be impacted.

The Play Console dashboard has been updated in alignment to feature device type data in the Ratings Overview and Breakdown sections. There will also be better ways to date data with more options for total range as well as aggregation segmentation — how much time between plot points from daily to weekly to every 28 days. Developers can also export their data as a CSV.