Apple has removed customer reviews from its online store, as first reported by AppleInsider, and we’ve confirmed this to be the case. AppleInsider got a tip from a reader that the reviews had been removed from the US, UK, and Australian Apple Stores (which we have also confirmed).
If you want to see the changes for yourself, you can look at the Wayback Machine archives for the original Apple Pencil for November 16th and November 17th, as found by AppleInsider. On the November 17th capture, you can see that the “Ratings & Reviews” section is gone.
Apple’s choice means that customers can’t provide useful feedback on the products available on Apple’s store — especially if a product might be bad. There were at least 735 one-star reviews for the Lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack adapter, for example, but now you can’t tell if it’s good or not just by looking at that page.
We’ve asked Apple for comment and will update this story with anything we hear back.