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?
Permissions (Score:5, Interesting)
I would aggressively punish apps that demand overly broad access to your data.
Two things.... (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Remove Apple from having it's name on the App Store (or just allow anybody to set up their own store)
2. Removing Apple's 100% control of what apps are listed (Or just allow anybody to set up their own store)
Having an APP rating system might be nice, one where users rate the app for content similar to video games as well as a user overall satisfaction score. However, just doing the first two things would fix it.
But we all know Apple won't forgo the revenue stream and will NEVER give up editorial control because now it requires rooting your phone and voiding the warranty to set up any app store besides Apple's.
So I guess, it's really just one thing... Allow anybody to set up their own store and not require user to root their device to load apps from it.
Liability (Score:2, Interesting)
The second you hand storefront management over to a human you open yourself up to a million lawsuits from people alleging unfair business practices.
Re:Two things.... (Score:5, Interesting)
My girlfriend has an iPad, and she uses alternative app stores. They just curate the apps in Apple's store and link to it for the actual install and download, but she says the one she uses (sorry, it's Chinese, I can't remember the name) makes it much easier to find stuff than Apple's because it has social integration, so she can see what her friends use and rate highly.
Google does the same thing with Play. If people you know on G+ rate apps highly or post about them they are more likely to appear in your suggested apps. It's kinda like what TFA suggests, human beings selecting apps, but doesn't cost Google anything and is tailored to the individual.
Re:Two things.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh yea they do, (actually IT does). Apple's app store suffers from one really obvious flaw, it's 100% controlled by Apple and not subject to any kind of competition. They religiously guard this control.
A little bit of competition would spurn on innovation in the App market and how they are loaded and sold, which was the point I was trying to make.
Re:Slashdot proves it! (Score:2, Interesting)
Moderation and meta-moderation solve all problems. :/
You joke, but I can't figure out what on earth metamoderation even does any more. It used to be checking if a moderation was fair or not, but now it's deciding if a comment is good or bad? To what end? How does that impact Slashdot comments, commenters, or moderators?
SEARCHABILITY (Score:5, Interesting)
The biggest problem both the App Store and the Play Store have is searchability. There is no way to filter on anything other than high-level category and keyword, and whatever the result-based ranking algorithms on both stores uses, is horrible, always returning junk and crap instead of what you really want.
This makes finding the kinds of apps you want even when you KNOW what you are looking for EXTREMELY ANNOYING AND OVERLY DIFFICULT, way more so than it has to be.
It is very ironic that Google whose main business is search can not cobble together the resources to make a decent search for Android over the past 5 years.
Re:Two things.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Why bother paying to develop for the #2 platform (12% sales) when you can develop for the #1 platform (85% sales) for free?
Because the users of the #2 platform have already demonstrated a predisposition toward paying more than they have to for things, and I've seen claims that Apple users will pay more for apps. The iOS platform is also less fragmented than the Android platform, so there are fewer device configurations that you have to account for.
Disclaimer: That's all word-of-mouth to me. I'm not a mobile app developer, but those are some of the arguments that I've seen others make.