Download bots are a well-known secret of the iOS eco-system
insidemobileapps.com
insidemobileapps.com
AppStore has been mostly untouched over its lifetime. I frequently scan the "Featured" category and "Top 25", but I rarely go deeper. The curation could be much broader and touch individual interests, but right now, it doesn't.
I would ask this to iOS developers: what would you like to see AppStore changed so that you might get additional exposure for your software?
I end up just wading through lists and lists of apps I already know I don't want and arent interested in.
Abilities to hide apps based on rules would be great too. For example, some reason chosen by me - so that when I go to download this app in the future, i might see something like "deleted this app because they added bad micropayments that ruined the game"
Something like 'categorise by publisher' could be cool too, if a company is making consistantly good apps I would like to find more of them.
I think there's room for a third party solution. A website where you can rank apps you like, and it recommends other ones you might like could work. There's lots of potential options for app discovery businesses, I just don't see how Apple can get into it at the level a good third party solution could.
The more content they can get under your nose that you like, the more content you buy, the more the app devs make, the more Apple makes and the more desired the iOS store becomes.
This is why Netflix and Amazon spend millions on their reccomendation engines; same idea here.
I think you probably knew this though. I am only solidying the point that inside any app stores environment, it is the job of the owner of the store to markwt the content effectively. Outside the store, anyone can do anything they want.
Not only do my Genius recommendations rarely change, the hit rate of things I actually want to play that is recommended to me is something like 4%.
Google seems a bit better at this, but Apple is awful at this... like "Dear god just acquire some company that is recommending toothbrushes and adapt their algorithm" bad.
At least from a user perspective.
I strongly believe that it IS Apple's job to help get apps in front of iOS users because it's an ecosystem that prides itself on better apps. I agree that if Apple gave developers' a better way, to hell with bots.
As for a third party solution, people have tried. People have tried to create websites to rank apps, but they just don't work without incentivization (which to many of you, means misleading the end user.) Ask yourself honestly. Would you yourself log onto a site every time you try an app just to rate it?
Let Android start catching up revenue-wise and I suspect Apple will find they can have a UI expert look at iTunes and fix so many of the glaring warts.
Here's an idea:
Why doesn't Apple take the Amazon/Netflix approach and add a recommendations engine?
For example, if I was a big fan of iMobsters (and I spent a lot of $$$ in it, it would have a few categories.)
New (like iMobsters): Crime City, Mobster Wars 3D, Crime Inc.
Related: Racing Live, Gun Bros
You Might Like: Tiny Wings
etc.
Up until now, it's been the same old categories. The apps Apple features/shows (excluding rankings) aren't catered to your tastes, but rather just what they like (staff picks, featured , etc)
In terms of personal curation, I think Genius solves that. It isn't as complicated or thorough as it could be, but it works.
As a dev what would I like to see? All my apps being featured. but seriously;
1. The ability to respond to reviews. A review of one of my apps said this: 1 Star, "This is total junk. I don't even know why but it's horrible. Don't buy it. It's not worth it. Trust me" The context is that it's a free app (with no ads) and every other review has given it 5 stars. Who knows how many users that has scared away?
2. A more effective ranking algorithm. Preferably one that isn't as susceptible to gaming via these bot farms mentioned in OP. Apps that deserve to be there should not have their spot taken. You can see the benefit of fair ranking on the paid list because no-one has even tried botting that.
Genius has never worked well for me, neither in music nor in apps. It provides recommendations that are never wildly off the mark, but it's far from smart.
Certainly I would be extremely reluctant to have it be a primary form of app discovery.
> "The fact that Apple does this already shows that they are trying to get great apps in front of users."
Certainly, but it's not enough. There are millions of apps on the store, and Apple can surface, what, 100-odd apps to a user in a given day? There is a huge portion of great, but not top-100-worthy apps that users would be interested it in.
> "1. The ability to respond to reviews."
Absolutely. I work on one of the top apps in the store, and we get a lot of reviews that are really bug reports. We do have a support email, but naturally not everybody finds their way there. We'd love to improve the software, but it's impossible if we can't communicate with reviewers!
Of course this restriction is annoying for honest, hard working developers. But if honest, hard working developers have a problem with bug reports in the reviews, they can just as well fix the bugs and test the app more thoroughly before the next release.
This is going to sound snarky but... do you write apps? Or, well, any reasonably complex piece of software?
I dare say where I work we test apps far more thoroughly than most, but inevitably there are misses. When you have an app of a certain complexity you will always be sitting on top of a veritable pile of unsubstantiated bug reports. When you have literally millions of users, someone somewhere will trip over even the most obscure bug (in your code or Apple's... or 3rd party's).
When users reach out to us we can get crash logs, and that helps greatly. When it's an app review... not so much.
> "I'm extremely happy that developers can't respond to user reviews."
You assume I mean publicly respond to reviews. That's not what I meant. It would be extremely helpful if devs can respond to user reviews privately, via some moderated channel where the user's real contact info is never revealed. It will at least give us a chance to correct a bad experience or collect debug data.
My take on it is: If a bug slips through, I have to live with the public humiliation as a consequence.
As for responding to reviews: Yes, I meant public responses.
In my opinion private responses to reviews are useless, because I assume that people who believe that reviews are the best way to report bugs are also incapable of sending crash reports, even if you send them step-by-step instructions how to do so.
I am talking from experience. People send all kinds of things when you ask them for crash reports. If I get a reply, I might get console log entries or crash reports for different apps. If you ask people how large their file is, they may say: "several gigabytes" when it is actually 10MB.
Those people who have a sufficient understanding of computers to provide useful feedback also understand that they should report bugs via email.
This kills me, not only because his review has likely scared away a number of potential customers, but also because I can't help him resolve the simple misunderstanding because I have no way of contacting him. It is unfortunate that many users utilize the review system instead of proper support channels to complain about bugs or perceived bugs, leaving us no way to help them.
As for the concern that sellers would use responses as a means of abusing customers - I would think that most intelligent users would see it for what it was and avoid sellers who routinely abused or blamed their users. On the other hand, a seller who politely responded to negative reviews with a resolution, a means of getting help, or at the very least a promise to look into the issue(s) would be rightly viewed more favorably.
Here's something that'll improve things 1000% overnight:
Separate the Store from iTunes.
Do it Android/Kindle style - if I'm surfing the internet at work and see a cool app, I should be able to install it on my phone without ever fishing it out of my pocket. I should be able to tap download (quickly authenticate, if I must) and have the app on my home screen next time it's out of my pocket.
And 100% web-based, none of this WebView-in-a-iTunes-shell bullshit.
Right now the problem is this: the only time the user is ever in "I want an app" mode is when they're already surfing the app store, and as we've already established, the current app discovery channels (being featured, and being ranked) is pretty limited.
User sees someone share a picture from Instagram on Facebook. User clicks through to see what this Instagram hubbub is all about. Instagram throws a slick video and website at user. User is super sold. User now has to pull out his/her phone, open the App Store (which, btw, is a horrifyingly slow app), search "Instagram", tap Install, authenticate, and wait.
Or, if you're really lucky, user is on the exact computer they sync their phone against (if indeed they sync their phone at all!) - you can do a slick redirect to iTunes, where user can download the app... and have it downloaded automatically on the device too... if user has iCloud enabled... and auto-app-download enabled... you hope.
Geeeeeeeeez.
Here what Apple needs to do - offer a solution for app makers willing to market their own products. Have a simplified checkout page, PayPal style. I'm willing to do all the legwork, you don't need to show screenshots or have long-winded (and poorly formatted) app descriptions for me. I will do the selling, you just guide the user through the checkout in as frictionless a process as possible. Throw in reviews if you don't trust me and want to warn your users. Sure.
Remove the friction between the user and acquiring an app. Make it web-based, make it so that people can discover, learn more about, and buy apps from anywhere, on any device, on any platform.
A competing app was released within one week of mine late last October. I managed 1000 downloads in a week, he managed 10,000 in far less than that. His Google +1s also went to 381 almost immediately. His current # of Google +1s more than two months later: 389.
If he's ranked higher than you, he's most likely hitting the factors better than you.
As for that "more holistic" approach, Bots don't usually uninstall apps that they've downloaded. They just get re-instantiated (and possibly reused to further help pad results).
Also if PPI was used, a lot of cash was blown to get 10k downloads and 381 Google +1s sandwiched into a manner of hours. That means the developer either has an inside track or lots of cash to blow and no thought to ever seeing a return.
Sorry, don't know why this is upsetting to ask...
Seems to me that bumping downloads but not usage could just as easy happen with pushy ads targeting users with a healthy "ooh shiny" instinct, especially for free (or freemium) apps, so this really does not seem convincing to me.
They will say this off the record to reporters, but never on the record because they don't want to be banned by Apple.
Also, Apple issued a warning to developers about using these services last week.
Also: @Alexlin, who everyone is beating on in the comments, ran a user acquisition, marketing company for apps called G6Pay and runs his own mobile gaming company, which is part of YC. He actually knows his stuff about how to get to the top of the charts.
For Alexlin, well, I'd be interested in knowing how he knows this too.
Because of this, the era of rapidly acquiring users at scale on iOS is coming to an end. In it's place, developers will be forced to revert back to traditional ad buys in the form of banner ad networks with ridiculously "black 'box" targeting options.
I don't know if this is a bad thing since developers will spend more time figuring out their LTVs through each respective acquisition channel, but you sure as hell better be able to throw a few thousand dollars here and there and expect it to never back out.
All in all, Apple's app store policy should just read, "If you've solved discoverability on our app store, we're banning your method."
They fraudulently make the claim "lots of people like this". User's believe a "most downloaded" means other people like them have made a decision and picked this little grain of wheat from the chaff.
Bot farming is fundamentally lying to your potential customers to the detriment of applications that should be on the list.
Why aren't people rallying against Tapjoy when they're incentivizing people to download apps in exchange for virtual currency? As long as you pay $20-30k, you have enough downloads to breach the top 25.
Or take banner ads. Zynga has the ability to throw $100k IOs at random ad networks and their new apps are instantly in the Top 25 shortly after launch. Does this reflect popularity/quality or is it just a competition between who has the biggest wallet?
If Apple changed it's app store algorithm to function like the Android app store (that takes uninstall rates/ratings into account), this wouldn't be a problem.
I'm no Apple fanboy generally, but this seems like they're making a choice based on what's good for their human users, and that choice benefits some the developers at the expense of others. (IMO, it benefits the ones who are competing "fairly", but that doesn't even matter compared to "is it good for users?")
Try navigating the app store. Tell me how you discover apps. A great app that was released is never going to get anywhere unless a marketing budget has been allocated beforehand (unless you somehow win the lottery and create the next angry birds.)
And lets talk about the "expense" of others. Did you feel like you lost anything when bots and incent PPI were allowed? Did you even know about it? The app store functions in a way that it's sort of like the survival of the fittest. If the people don't like an app, it's going to drop back down as fast as it climbed up.
If Apple wants to create an ecosystem where indie developers can thrive, they need to change their ranking algorithm, solve discoverability for their developers, or stop banning the solutions people have been coming up with (incent PPI, bots.)
You also have to account for the LTV of users. If it's not backing out (which is most likely for a bad app), they're just wasting their money.
How indie is indie?
$5k - $15k may not be considered a "large wallet" by internet advertising standards, but it's a whole lot of money by "I just wrote a great app in my spare time and want people to see it" standards.
Prove me wrong that $5k is a lot easier to scrape together than say... iAd's $25k minimum ad buy.
Still, an explicit "sponsored app links" section would be much better than inflation through bot-pumping.