iOS App Store App Metadata Scraper — Free

Track any iOS app's metadata over time. Name, version, rating average, rating count, install indicator, icon, genres, price, release dates — across any country, all free, no Apple Developer account needed.

✨ Why this Actor

• Free — Apple's official API (App Store Connect) is paid + restricted to app owners. This Actor pulls public data anyone can see.
• No login — uses the public iTunes /lookup endpoint
• Multi-country — sweep US, UK, India, Brazil etc. in one run; see how the same app's ratings differ by market
• Historical tracking — schedule this daily and you have a time-series of rating + install evolution

🚀 Quick start

Track Spotify across 5 countries:

{
  "appId": "324684580",
  "countries": ["us", "gb", "ca", "au", "in"]
}

Just the US:

{
  "appId": "284882215",
  "countries": ["us"]
}

To find an app's iTunes ID, open the App Store URL — it's the digits after id (e.g. apps.apple.com/us/app/spotify-music-and-podcasts/id324684580 → 324684580).

📦 Output schema

Field	Type	Notes
_kind	str	Always "app_meta"
id	str	iTunes ID (input)
name	str	App display name
bundle_id	str	iOS bundle identifier
seller	str	Developer / studio
average_rating_current	float	Current version average rating
rating_count_current	int	Current version rating count
average_rating	float	All-time average rating
rating_count	int	All-time rating count
current_version	str	e.g. 9.1.48
release_date	iso8601	When the app was first released
current_version_release_date	iso8601	When the current version shipped
track_view_url	str	App Store URL
icon	str	High-res app icon URL
genres	array	App Store categories
price, currency	float, str

🎯 Use cases

• Competitor monitoring — track rating + version of N competitor apps daily
• Investor diligence — rating velocity is a strong revenue signal; pair with Play Store data
• Localization research — see how the same app rates in different markets
• Auto-detect new releases — diff current_version daily; tweet when an app you watch ships an update
• Pricing intelligence — track app price changes across markets
• App acquisition pipeline — pre-filter potential targets by rating count + release date

⚙️ Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Notes
appId	str	—	Required. Digits-only iTunes ID
countries	array	["us","gb","ca","au","in","de","fr","jp","br","mx"]	ISO 2-letter codes
maxReviews	int	200	Reserved for future. Currently metadata-only — see note below
includeAppMeta	bool	true	(Always returns app_meta row; this is for parity with other scrapers)

⚠️ Why metadata-only?

In 2025, Apple deprecated the public customerreviews RSS feed that previously powered free iOS review scraping. Reviews are now gated behind their amp-api which requires:

1. A bearer JWT token (rotates frequently, captured via headless browser)
2. Or the paid App Store Connect API (only available to app owners)

This Actor tracks the data that's still publicly accessible: app metadata, rating averages, and rating counts. Despite the constraint, this is surprisingly useful — rating velocity tracking + version diffing covers most "competitive intel" use cases without needing review text.

If you specifically need iOS review text, look into the App Store Connect API or commercial services. For everything else, this Actor is the free baseline.

🛠️ How it works

This Actor calls Apple's public iTunes Search/Lookup endpoint:

GET https://itunes.apple.com/lookup?id={appId}&country={cc}

This is the same endpoint anyone can hit via curl, returning structured JSON. No auth, no token, no rate-limit problems.

🔗 Related Actors

• Google Play Store Reviews Scraper — full review text + metadata for Android (no Apple-style restrictions)
• Reddit Subreddit + Search — search for organic discussion of an app
• YouTube Channel + Video Scraper — track video reviews of an app

💬 Support

If Apple re-opens the reviews API or you need a custom variant, email caspersmartwater@gmail.com.

⭐ Star this Actor.