Apple's App Store Needs a Radical Revamp; How Would You Go About It? 249
Nerval's Lobster (2598977) writes Given the hundreds of thousands of apps currently on offer, it's hard for any one app (no matter how well designed) to stand out on Apple's App Store, much less stay atop the bestseller charts for very long. In an August 10 blog posting, former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée offered Apple CEO Tim Cook some advice: Let humans curate the App Store. 'Instead of using algorithms to sort and promote the apps that you permit on your shelves, why not assign a small group of adepts to create and shepherd an App Store Guide,' he wrote. 'A weekly newsletter will identify notable new titles, respond to counter-opinions, perhaps present a developer profile, footnote the occasional errata and mea culpa.' Whether or not such an idea would effectively surface all the good content now buried under layers of Flappy Bird rip-offs is an open question; what's certain is that, despite Apple's rosy picture, developers around the world face a lot of uncertainty and competition when it comes to making significant money off their apps. Sure, some developers are making a ton of cash, but the rising tide doesn't necessarily float all boats. If you had the opportunity, how would you revamp/revise/upgrade/adjust/destroy the App Store to better serve the developers who put apps in it?
Re:Two things.... (Score:3, Informative)
And introduces a whole lot of new ones. People rail against Apple's control over app store listings, but it really does go a long way to significantly reducing the amount of malware users get exposed to. Not all of it, to be sure, but most of it.
They could probably allow a bit more freedom by still curating their own app store, and forbidden alternate app stores, but allowing some form of manual side-loading that is sufficiently non-automated to ensure people don't get tricked into installing malware.
Browse, not search (Score:5, Informative)
A couple of folks have said it, but it bears repeating: we need hundreds of categories and subcategories. Think Amazon, not Google.
I want to look at all the diabetes monitoring apps, or all the Talmud apps, or find the BA app. A search throws up way too much junk. A browse of a category is at way too high a level. And I want to look at all the apps in my subsubcategory, and know I've seen all of them. Search doesn't cut it. Categories and browsing is needed.
If the 12% spend more (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How to fix ALL the app stores... (Score:4, Informative)
Step 2 no longer allow any app that replicates abilities in the stock phone.
Not such a god idea. If Android has a browser, a "social networking" app (Google+), a music player, an SMS app, a maps app and so on, alternatives may still be useful (e.g. an alternative SMS app with spam blocking, an alternative maps source).
Or iPhone, which has Safari, forces all browsers to use the Safari rendering engine. Not so great if someone develops a better browser with ad blocking, a faster (or more standards-compatible) rendering engine, or some other features besides another UI with bookmarks sync.
Step 4 eliminate in app purchases.
Some in-app purchases are good. For example add-supported apps that allow to disable ads for a fee will keep settings, while the traditional solution with a free/paid version clutters the appstore and loses your settings if you upgrade, since it's a completely different and isolated app.