That's the main thing missing from the app store, in my opinion.
The best implementation that I've come across is Xbox Live Arcade. Once you've played a demo and decided that you like a a game, you can upgrade to the full version instantly. All of your saved games and settings remain intact. Microsoft doesn't allow games on XBLA without a demo so good games rise to the top.
Microsoft doesn't get much right but XBLA is a fantastic system.
the demos need to be separately coded like studios have to spend time making movie trailers. i remember back around 2000 the number of demos for games started to drop off and one of the reasons was that devs didn't have time to code a demo and then support it.
The App Store definitely needs improvements in the way one looks for apps. Better search capabilities (with some sort of keywording, perhaps, although, some sort of 'spam' filtering there like search engines do, or a limit to the number of keywords, to stop developers from over-keywording their apps (and their app names, for that matter) would be desirable), better categorization and subcategorization, and the ability to sort in order of ratings, not just popularity (and maybe by price) would be a good start. A time or otherwise limited preview feature from inside iTunes would be nice (there is an emulator already, after all): especially for the more expensive apps, I think this would result in increased sales since users are reluctant to drop money on apps when they are uncertain if they really meet their needs.
And, as has been mentioned over and over again, a better way to organize the devices app pages would be very nice, although, it would be even better if they completely reworked that interface in a future iPhone OS release.
What they need is more subcategories. For example under Sports app's they could have a subcategory for each sport or under books have a subcategory for each genre.
It would make casually looking through for something a lot easier.
Yeah, like a going into a barnes & noble or something... a REAL bookstore!
I'm glad to see that they're thinking about this issue at Apple. From where I sit, it looks like el cheapo disposable apps are threatening to overwhelm the App Store and trivialize one of the most remarkable devices in existence.
There are some really shitty apps in the App Store, that's for sure. I've bought a bunch of real clunkers. I'd really like Apple to do some front-end quality control app rejections rather than intrusive content-based rejections.
We Mac users are so used to attractive, well designed applications that it's a real shocker when we see such an array of badly designed apps in the App Store.
I'm assuming that developers from the Windows side, who because of the huge Windows monopoly are able to write poor programs, sell to only a small percentage of Windows users and still be able to make a living. Under those conditions some got REALLY LAZY.
On the Mac side of things, if you write a shitty, ugly, poorly designed application, word gets around and it'll generally die a fairly quick death. Does anyone remember the Mac version of AutoCAD? It was pure garbage and AutoDesk just didn't get it when Mac users rejected it like the plague.
On the other hand, if you have the vision and ability to write a great application, you'll earn an extremely loyal following who will evangelize your app to everyone they know who might need it.
Apple could dump 10 to 15% of the Apps from the App Store and still come out way ahead. The danger is that it would piss off a lot of developers, but maybe a lot of the dead wood would give up or learn their craft and polish their skills!
So, yeah, it's a shame that the lowest-common-denominator attitude that's pervasive on the Windows side is polluting our end of the pool.
How about a genius feature like they do for music? They could scan your account on their server and review what your past purchases have been. Based on that history, they can recommend the other apps from all categories that they think I might like. Most people just don't have the time to search through thousands of apps to find ones that could add value to their life. It doesn't have to be absolutely perfect. But at least give me a general idea of what is available that I might like. They could base it on the stars given an app or it's ranking in its category or it's length of time as a top seller or all of the above. That would be the tricky part. What to based the recommendations on?
I second the comments for a preview feature for anything you might buy. Seems like it would be a simple program. Apple could keep track of when you downloaded the app. They would record a date and time when to trigger the response to ask you to buy or delete the app. They could record on the server when you had your preview to prevent you from re-downloading the same app for another test period. They could show the same question if you attempted to download the app again. A person could download free apps as many times as they wanted to use the app. Seems reasonable to me.
How about a genius feature like they do for music?
I second the comments for a preview feature for anything you might buy.
Both your points make perfect sense.
Hopefully an App Genius would be smarter than the village idiot of the music "genius". The results I was getting from the so-called genius were laughable at best. Although, with far fewer apps than songs, it might have better luck.
Trial periods for Apps would be great! Make it just like shareware applications: time limits or limit the number of launches.
The whole iTunes experience does need to be re-worked, for sure, it's cluttertown, but I doubt that is going to happen right now. But they could quickly and vastly improve the Apps store experience by simply making good on functionality that is supposed to be there already:
1) Quality control of apps. Whatever happened to Apple's promise to review and approve apps? I assume they would claim they still do, but how many apps have reviews which say "doesn't work", "crashes the iPhone", "crashes and then freezes", "completely lame, doesn't do what it claims", etc., etc., etc.? NONE of those apps should be on the site, period. Even if some people like an app, unless it works pretty much universally and has some real value, as determined by Apple, it shouldn't have the Apple seal of approval and shouldn't be on the site.
2) Search. Someone earlier said often search results don't even return apps with the actual name that was typed in. Search is King in a commoditized e-commerce site. The search engine's accuracy is as important as the products themselves, because if you can't find the products, there's no point in trying to sell them at all. I'm sure that Apple relies mostly on the apps' authors to define the apps and label them for searchability - they should take that back from the authors, and apply standardized and accurate labels onto each app for its search purposes - aka METADATA INTEGRITY.
Here's for hoping for a previewing of an App itself before purchasing.
Agreed.
Tim Cook didn't get it. He apparently does NOT understand why there is a race to the bottom in iPhone app prices. In my view, its because there is no way to try an app before purchasing and one of the very few ways to show up on a top sales list is for it to be free or close to it.
If they add a try before you buy and better ways to find apps, it may halt the slide to zero.
As it is, the business models that work for developers are free apps that are ad supported or which upsell based on a fee website, desktop application or service.
65,000 apps is no longer a selling point with me. Its a slog. The fact that the number of apps has doubled in the last six months means things are going to get more congested. I really don't enjoy browsing the app store anymore.
Yeah, just see how well it works out for all those right-wing loons looking to force their "morals" on everyone but themselves!
Kid diddlers, men's room lurkers, wife-dumpers, "hikers" and all.
Gotta love our American Taliban!
Unfortunately censorship is far more then just a right wing left wing problem. People have a natural tendency to avoid things they don't like or ideas that challenge their belief system. Some people go further and try to impose those views on other people and suppress information that clashes with their beliefs . This has nothing to with political ideology per se but has more to do with ones over confidence in self and a belief that "I" know what is best for you.
I find your comment above to be amusing, but on the other hand you just called about half of the american people "Taliban" which many would consider insulting. Ridiculing hypocrisy is good and usually bitingly funny, but then including such a broad and generalizing statement like right wing loons undercuts the effectiveness of your point. Not all right wingers are bible thumping, censorship promoting, war loving and (insert favorite stereotype here).
I definitely believe they need to improve the search feature on the app-store. I no longer check the store regularly to see what is new because there are just to many apps to go through. I now only go on when looking for a specific app that I have learned about from a review or word of mouth. This is definitely not good for developers because I buy far fewer apps this way.
1. Get rid of the section on the app page that tells what other who bought this app also bought. Replace it with "Similar apps." When I am searching for a navigation app, I want to know about other navigation apps, not some stupid game.
2. Add video preview of the app rather than screenshots. Before purchasing an app, I look for it on YouTube. Let people see the app in action for a realistic idea of whether it is a good purchase. That would be more valuable than a free trial.
3. Allow professional reviewers to post links to their full review of the apps.
4. Make the text browsable so that the text can be enlarged, copied, or read by screen readers. Having no control over the extremely small font makes the store practically unusable for a lot of people.
5. Find a way to stop cluttering the store with crap apps. The only apps that should make it to the front page are those well reviewed apps that make Apple look good. Everything else should be available for search, but otherwise out of sight.
I was reading this and thought our white paper might add something to this discussion: http://bit.ly/PRJCP
In brief, the App Store needs to refocus itself on providing QUALITY applications rather than selling QUANTITY.
There are some valid points in your whitepaper, but I would offer two comments (or maybe it's one comment in two parts):
First, I don't think the App Store needs to focus on "quality" apps. What it needs to do is focus on making it easier for people to find the quality apps, and you and others point out several ways it could do this. Apple should give users the means to identify quality apps, but I don't think they should get into the business of defining what these are. (Or at least to do so in a as neutral a way as possible.) If for no other reason than that it's already problematic to have Apple rejecting apps based on content, and for them to be the arbiter of quality would, in my opinion, likely be equally problematic, if not more so.
I also don't think there is anything wrong with there being downward price pressure in the App Store. Obviously, developers would like to be able to charge higher prices and make more money per sale. Users, naturally, would prefer that everything be free. (Well, no, they don't think about the fact that most developers need to make money to be able to continue creating apps.) But, I also think most users understand that they mostly get what they pay for (or, at least not more than they pay for) when buying apps. So, given a way to differentiate apps by quality, many users would be (and are) willing to pay more for higher quality apps.
However, depending on the importance of the "task", the quality vs. price equation will lead to different solutions for different users. So, I think it's a good thing that there be a range of quality and prices in apps and developers are free to choose the app that fits their needs at the price that makes the most sense to them.
So, in a sense, it's a good thing that there are a certain number of crappy apps in the App Store that are cheap or free. This keeps the developers of the quality apps from gouging users, because they can, because there's no mediocre or crappy alternative. (You know, like Adobe does with its CS products.) And I think it's in everyone's interest to keep apps relatively cheap with each iPhone owner 'buying' lots of them.
There's still plenty of money to be made by producing quality apps, and, except for perhaps a handful of developers, I don't think most developers of quality apps would really make significantly more money if they had less pressure to keep prices low; many might actually make less if they felt less price pressure; I think many could make significantly more, though, if users didn't have to browse through, say, 284 pages of apps in some category.
But, clearly, the consensus, here at least, and probably more generally, is that the current structure of the app store makes it difficult for users to find what they are looking for, and is off-putting to many. The catalog has just gotten way too large and unwieldy. And everyone, developers and users would be happier if Apple addressed this problem as soon as possible.
The idea that keeps recurring when I speak to friends is that people want a way of being able to share apps. Even if that means a way of sending a link from one iPhone to another. Rather than just trying to spell out app names and then they have to go to the app store and do a search for themselves...
One way Apple could improve the App Store experience is to highlight the top apps for each category. For instance, what are the top games in a specific game category, or the top travel apps.
Top picks could be based on certain quality and performance criteria that the experts at Apple could decide on.
If the top picks are limited to a specific number, say 10 or 20 for each narrow category, and being awarded this designation carries benefits for the developers (increased sales or bragging rights), I believe those developers who are serious about providing us with quality stuff will scramble to unseat those on the list, thus driving further improvements for the users.
Many people focus on ratings when picking movies, buying cars, choosing restaurants. Why not let Apple put together its own (unbiased, hopefully) Top Picks list? I think the user would win on this one.
My suggestion is to also do like other retail sites, allow users to search by price. Have a Free section, .99cent section, $1.00-4.99, $5.00-9.99, etc. Keeping their current structure, but also allowing customers to search by price once in a category will help (ex. Games > $1.00-4.99>). Also, maybe give a professional section section for people who are looking for only business/professional apps to use in their work, and don't care about free or general use apps. Like other retail sites, allow users greater control to filter as they search down (ex. HDTV > 1080p > 46-52 in.>120mhz), etc.
Comments
That's the main thing missing from the app store, in my opinion.
The best implementation that I've come across is Xbox Live Arcade. Once you've played a demo and decided that you like a a game, you can upgrade to the full version instantly. All of your saved games and settings remain intact. Microsoft doesn't allow games on XBLA without a demo so good games rise to the top.
Microsoft doesn't get much right but XBLA is a fantastic system.
the demos need to be separately coded like studios have to spend time making movie trailers. i remember back around 2000 the number of demos for games started to drop off and one of the reasons was that devs didn't have time to code a demo and then support it.
a lot of games from big name publishers have it
And, as has been mentioned over and over again, a better way to organize the devices app pages would be very nice, although, it would be even better if they completely reworked that interface in a future iPhone OS release.
What they need is more subcategories. For example under Sports app's they could have a subcategory for each sport or under books have a subcategory for each genre.
It would make casually looking through for something a lot easier.
Yeah, like a going into a barnes & noble or something... a REAL bookstore!
What a concept!
I'm glad to see that they're thinking about this issue at Apple. From where I sit, it looks like el cheapo disposable apps are threatening to overwhelm the App Store and trivialize one of the most remarkable devices in existence.
There are some really shitty apps in the App Store, that's for sure. I've bought a bunch of real clunkers. I'd really like Apple to do some front-end quality control app rejections rather than intrusive content-based rejections.
We Mac users are so used to attractive, well designed applications that it's a real shocker when we see such an array of badly designed apps in the App Store.
I'm assuming that developers from the Windows side, who because of the huge Windows monopoly are able to write poor programs, sell to only a small percentage of Windows users and still be able to make a living. Under those conditions some got REALLY LAZY.
On the Mac side of things, if you write a shitty, ugly, poorly designed application, word gets around and it'll generally die a fairly quick death. Does anyone remember the Mac version of AutoCAD? It was pure garbage and AutoDesk just didn't get it when Mac users rejected it like the plague.
On the other hand, if you have the vision and ability to write a great application, you'll earn an extremely loyal following who will evangelize your app to everyone they know who might need it.
Apple could dump 10 to 15% of the Apps from the App Store and still come out way ahead. The danger is that it would piss off a lot of developers, but maybe a lot of the dead wood would give up or learn their craft and polish their skills!
So, yeah, it's a shame that the lowest-common-denominator attitude that's pervasive on the Windows side is polluting our end of the pool.
Yes, the App Store does have search. Do you even have an iPhone or iPod touch?
Sadly, no... This economy has reduced my income some 15K and the iPhone and ATT data plan are discretionary items...
Unlike government, I can't pay with IOU's and I can't arbitrarily go to boss and raise income as easily as the government can with people's taxes.
Unfortunately, that won't stop the prudes from complaining. They typically want to inflict their own morals on everyone else.
Yeah, just see how well it works out for all those right-wing loons looking to force their "morals" on everyone but themselves!
Kid diddlers, men's room lurkers, wife-dumpers, "hikers" and all.
Gotta love our American Taliban!
I second the comments for a preview feature for anything you might buy. Seems like it would be a simple program. Apple could keep track of when you downloaded the app. They would record a date and time when to trigger the response to ask you to buy or delete the app. They could record on the server when you had your preview to prevent you from re-downloading the same app for another test period. They could show the same question if you attempted to download the app again. A person could download free apps as many times as they wanted to use the app. Seems reasonable to me.
How about a genius feature like they do for music?
I second the comments for a preview feature for anything you might buy.
Both your points make perfect sense.
Hopefully an App Genius would be smarter than the village idiot of the music "genius". The results I was getting from the so-called genius were laughable at best. Although, with far fewer apps than songs, it might have better luck.
Trial periods for Apps would be great! Make it just like shareware applications: time limits or limit the number of launches.
1) Quality control of apps. Whatever happened to Apple's promise to review and approve apps? I assume they would claim they still do, but how many apps have reviews which say "doesn't work", "crashes the iPhone", "crashes and then freezes", "completely lame, doesn't do what it claims", etc., etc., etc.? NONE of those apps should be on the site, period. Even if some people like an app, unless it works pretty much universally and has some real value, as determined by Apple, it shouldn't have the Apple seal of approval and shouldn't be on the site.
2) Search. Someone earlier said often search results don't even return apps with the actual name that was typed in. Search is King in a commoditized e-commerce site. The search engine's accuracy is as important as the products themselves, because if you can't find the products, there's no point in trying to sell them at all. I'm sure that Apple relies mostly on the apps' authors to define the apps and label them for searchability - they should take that back from the authors, and apply standardized and accurate labels onto each app for its search purposes - aka METADATA INTEGRITY.
Here's for hoping for a previewing of an App itself before purchasing.
Agreed.
Tim Cook didn't get it. He apparently does NOT understand why there is a race to the bottom in iPhone app prices. In my view, its because there is no way to try an app before purchasing and one of the very few ways to show up on a top sales list is for it to be free or close to it.
If they add a try before you buy and better ways to find apps, it may halt the slide to zero.
As it is, the business models that work for developers are free apps that are ad supported or which upsell based on a fee website, desktop application or service.
Yeah, just see how well it works out for all those right-wing loons looking to force their "morals" on everyone but themselves!
Kid diddlers, men's room lurkers, wife-dumpers, "hikers" and all.
Gotta love our American Taliban!
Unfortunately censorship is far more then just a right wing left wing problem. People have a natural tendency to avoid things they don't like or ideas that challenge their belief system. Some people go further and try to impose those views on other people and suppress information that clashes with their beliefs . This has nothing to with political ideology per se but has more to do with ones over confidence in self and a belief that "I" know what is best for you.
I find your comment above to be amusing, but on the other hand you just called about half of the american people "Taliban" which many would consider insulting. Ridiculing hypocrisy is good and usually bitingly funny, but then including such a broad and generalizing statement like right wing loons undercuts the effectiveness of your point. Not all right wingers are bible thumping, censorship promoting, war loving and (insert favorite stereotype here).
In brief, the App Store needs to refocus itself on providing QUALITY applications rather than selling QUANTITY.
1. Get rid of the section on the app page that tells what other who bought this app also bought. Replace it with "Similar apps." When I am searching for a navigation app, I want to know about other navigation apps, not some stupid game.
2. Add video preview of the app rather than screenshots. Before purchasing an app, I look for it on YouTube. Let people see the app in action for a realistic idea of whether it is a good purchase. That would be more valuable than a free trial.
3. Allow professional reviewers to post links to their full review of the apps.
4. Make the text browsable so that the text can be enlarged, copied, or read by screen readers. Having no control over the extremely small font makes the store practically unusable for a lot of people.
5. Find a way to stop cluttering the store with crap apps. The only apps that should make it to the front page are those well reviewed apps that make Apple look good. Everything else should be available for search, but otherwise out of sight.
I was reading this and thought our white paper might add something to this discussion: http://bit.ly/PRJCP
In brief, the App Store needs to refocus itself on providing QUALITY applications rather than selling QUANTITY.
There are some valid points in your whitepaper, but I would offer two comments (or maybe it's one comment in two parts):
First, I don't think the App Store needs to focus on "quality" apps. What it needs to do is focus on making it easier for people to find the quality apps, and you and others point out several ways it could do this. Apple should give users the means to identify quality apps, but I don't think they should get into the business of defining what these are. (Or at least to do so in a as neutral a way as possible.) If for no other reason than that it's already problematic to have Apple rejecting apps based on content, and for them to be the arbiter of quality would, in my opinion, likely be equally problematic, if not more so.
I also don't think there is anything wrong with there being downward price pressure in the App Store. Obviously, developers would like to be able to charge higher prices and make more money per sale. Users, naturally, would prefer that everything be free. (Well, no, they don't think about the fact that most developers need to make money to be able to continue creating apps.) But, I also think most users understand that they mostly get what they pay for (or, at least not more than they pay for) when buying apps. So, given a way to differentiate apps by quality, many users would be (and are) willing to pay more for higher quality apps.
However, depending on the importance of the "task", the quality vs. price equation will lead to different solutions for different users. So, I think it's a good thing that there be a range of quality and prices in apps and developers are free to choose the app that fits their needs at the price that makes the most sense to them.
So, in a sense, it's a good thing that there are a certain number of crappy apps in the App Store that are cheap or free. This keeps the developers of the quality apps from gouging users, because they can, because there's no mediocre or crappy alternative. (You know, like Adobe does with its CS products.) And I think it's in everyone's interest to keep apps relatively cheap with each iPhone owner 'buying' lots of them.
There's still plenty of money to be made by producing quality apps, and, except for perhaps a handful of developers, I don't think most developers of quality apps would really make significantly more money if they had less pressure to keep prices low; many might actually make less if they felt less price pressure; I think many could make significantly more, though, if users didn't have to browse through, say, 284 pages of apps in some category.
But, clearly, the consensus, here at least, and probably more generally, is that the current structure of the app store makes it difficult for users to find what they are looking for, and is off-putting to many. The catalog has just gotten way too large and unwieldy. And everyone, developers and users would be happier if Apple addressed this problem as soon as possible.
Top picks could be based on certain quality and performance criteria that the experts at Apple could decide on.
If the top picks are limited to a specific number, say 10 or 20 for each narrow category, and being awarded this designation carries benefits for the developers (increased sales or bragging rights), I believe those developers who are serious about providing us with quality stuff will scramble to unseat those on the list, thus driving further improvements for the users.
Many people focus on ratings when picking movies, buying cars, choosing restaurants. Why not let Apple put together its own (unbiased, hopefully) Top Picks list? I think the user would win on this one.
What do you think?
That's my .02cents.