Trevor Johns, on Google’s Android Developers blog:

User reviews on Google Play are great for helping people discover quality apps and give feedback to developers and other potential app users. But what about when developers want to give feedback to their users? Sometimes a user just needs a helping hand, or perhaps a new feature has been added and the developer wants to share the good news.

That’s why we’re adding the ability for Google Play developers to respond to reviews from the Google Play Android Developer Console. Developers can gather additional information, provide guidance, and — perhaps most importantly — let users know when their feature requests have been implemented.

This is something iOS app developers have hoped, dreamed and prayed for since the day the App Store launched. It’ll be interesting to see how many Android developers end up creating problems for themselves with less-than-diplomatic responses or all out flamewars with testy app buyers.