Apple just can’t get a break. They keep removing things that people want. The headphone jack, the startup chime, and star ratings in the iOS Music app. As I mentioned here, iOS 10 saw the removal of the ability to rate tracks from one to five stars from the Music app, though there were a couple of workarounds.
Now, in the beta version of iOS 10.2 which has just been released, Apple has restored the ability to apply star ratings. You can turn on this feature in the Music settings:
Once you’ve activated that setting, rating a star is more complicated than in the past. Before, you simply tapped the track’s artwork to display a series of stars. Now, you need to tap the … button, then tap Rate Song.
Next, you choose star rating in a dialog, and tap Done.
It’s great that Apple is brining back star ratings; it’s a shame that the process is now so convoluted. It was simple in the past. By removing this feature, then re-adding it, Apple has complicated what was once a very simple step to rating music.