How to prevent the App Store from becoming the Crap Store | Hacker News Reader

How to prevent the App Store from becoming the Crap Store

taptaptap.com

This thought occurred to me as well. I think it's of merit but Apple actually has a really hard problem on their hands, namely that the app store UI is terribly simple and at the moment doesn't appear to have a good way to prioritize suggestions.

Given the metadata that they must have, it would be trivial to switch to gross revenue, or rev * review score, or any number of other things, including time. (Reddit/HN method of scoring articles)

For that matter there's no reason why they can't compare app store purchases you've scored to the scores of other people who've purchased the same application to suggest things. (Amazon "people who purchased..." or Netflix way of doing things)

Hey Apple, give me the ability to affiliate your store. You can have 95% control of the UI (I want a banner at the top) but I get to pick the sequence things are offered for a given search. Give me 5%, I will make you rich. (Netflix challenge way of doing things)

At the moment they have a "Customers also bought" section, bottom right in itunes.

And you can become an affiliate for the itunes store: http://www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/

All this would do is force the prices the other way. People would be trying to sell crap for more using WOM or some other way to inflate 'box office revenue' and once they are on the list, instead of lowering the price to stay on it, they'd be increasing it. While that will get rid of crapware for .99, it will drive the prices of the same soft up, ultimately hurting the consumer. Best solution to this is app genius that recommends apps based on what you want to do.

Until that happens, use word of mouth to your advantage. Use Google Mobile App as an example of online campaign. Once techies get your app on their phone, they will be the platform for homing in their less tech friends to your apps.

It seems to me that ranking apps by net sales would reinforce the incentive to make as much money as possible. Profit would provide the resources for the producer to create a quality product, and competition would keep prices low and encourage innovation. </capitalism>

In a way, one issue with the App Store, is that it exists. Since people know it's there, they'll check it out to see what's available. As opposed to probably not looking for apps at all. (or less)

And finding a good way to rank the apps is not easy. By number of downloads doesn't work well, by revenue wouldn't work I think, by rating might work a little bit but then what? So, the App Store is in fact not a great place to find good apps, just the most popular.

So, people go to the App Store but otherwise don't know where to go to find apps or information about apps. But the presence of the store makes the word-of-mouth a little bit more difficult because the store is supposed to be the place, so I suppose in general, people don't look anywhere else. (I know I don't) And people don't feel like sharing their discoveries as much.

Of course, I don't deny the huge benefit of the App Store. I would have never installed that many applications otherwise. But it's "louder" and covers some of the more traditional marketing and word-of-mouth.

The author doesn't paint the complete picture.

The iPhone application they wrote, "Classics" was released after "Stanza" (http://www.lexcycle.com/). Stanza is free, I believe they plan on charging for their desktop software in the future. The main difference between stanza and classics is that classics has fancier animations.

The author misses that the different parties have different goals. TapTapTap wants to maximize app revenue. To do that, you do want to sort by revenue. (Actually, probably something like revenue per last n impressions, so that apps that have a traffic spike won't stay up there when the spike is over.)

But Apple makes most their money off the sale of iPhones. So they want people to be happy when they use the app store, even if it doesn't make them as much money directly. When someone downloads and enjoys a free app, that's meaningless to TapTapTap, but it's great for Apple. You can't exactly measure user enjoyment, but it's not unreasonable to suppose that "number of downloads" is a better proxy for user happiness than "net revenue".

Mobile apps do not have to be driven by impulse. I was dating a med student when ePocrates was all the rage for doctors and med students on Palm devices. She had hers on a Sony Clie. ePocrates was great because you had searchable pharmaceutical information that was also updated every time you synced. The fact that it replaced a few big honking volumes was great. There was no App Store back then. My impression was that advertising was largely word of mouth.

I intend to develop applications for specific niches, so I won't be depending on being in the "What's Hot" lists. Instead, I will be providing something that spreads by word of mouth because it has real value. (I'll also be hitting up blogs and other media.)

Is that blog using Fertigo Pro for a font? That's incredible.

I don't know much about economics and the App Store, but I'd be inclined to trust this article. TapTapTap makes some excellent apps. Classics is a favorite.

There is no busness like the show business.

If you have a hit you make it big, otherwise you get next to nothing.

I think Apple wants apps to be $0.99 or free. Otherwise they would have been ranking by revenue from the beginning.

Apple wants apps to do everything that can be offloaded to a handheld. This thing is in it's infancy. Apple gets to create this part of the 21st century because no one else is up for it. You think the iPhone is a mature product? Not even close.

Apple did not create this part of the 21st century. There have been applications for mobile phones for years now (and before the phones, there was the palm pilot). I am sure there are way more applications available for other mobile platforms than for the iPhone. #nitpicking

The critical point is cognitive friction. The UI of the iPhone means that it integrates with your brain much easier then a cell phone. There is a critical point between UI, mind extension, and cognitive friction. The 21st century potentials come from the way the exponentially better UI reduce cognitive friction and let your mind interact with your phone more naturally.

It's like a primitive MMI. A cell phone isn't. That's the difference. This isn't the last cell phone. It's the first MMI that follows you everywhere.

I think your view that apps are what is important is superficial, and what's important is cognitive function. Getting human brains to work better with a phone is what makes apple responsible for this part of the 21st century, not the abilities of the phone per se.

I thought the discussion was about the app store. Usability of the iPhone - maybe. Maybe a bigger factor is mobile internet becoming cheaper. I haven't been a user of mobile internet so far, but perhaps those Blackberry guys have been using mobile internet long before the iPhone?

What exactly can be done with the iPhone now that wasn't possible before (possibly with a slightly less pleasing UI)? Maybe it only adds one ingredient: mass audience, which of course accounts for a lot.

The app store is a seed. I'm talking about the tree it's going to grow into. That's topical.

I can interact with it and have 100% of my brain available for the kinds of thinking my brain is good at. Because interacting with it does not require much of my brain (that good UI), it solves a bottleneck. If I use my iPhone to manage information, it multiplies the efficiency of my thinking. A cell phone doesn't do that.

There is a tipping point from UI and getting your mind into your phone where you can get more of your mind free to think while you use your device. UI represents the bottleneck between your brain and your device, so breaking that bottleneck is as important a technological revolution as breaking a bottleneck between different parts of your computer.

maybe you didn't do enough acid in college and don't consider every possible description should include an observer, but how your brain interacts with your machine (and environment) is as important a technological factor as anything technological. Apple, and the other people that realize that get to invent the 21st century. There is a reason neuron valley will be the next silicon valley over the next 20 years.

Maybe I didn't do enough acid to believe that Apple is the shit. Palm Pilots already were used to organize information, and they were much more open than the iPhone.

It would like to like Apple, but somehow it is all too restricted. Take the deeply flawed app store: since it is not open and not even HTML compatible, it is impossible for other people to step up and improve on it. I hope that is not the 21st century we are heading for.

Maybe the first time with the iPhone feels like a shot of a new, exciting drug. But ultimately using it synchronizes you to Apples way of thinking, and turns you into a drone.

You are thinking days and weeks ahead instead of months and decades. I agree the app store as it stands is crap. I think the ship has sailed on the app store being crap. That's a short term, soluble problem. Long term, UI + neurology will determine the 21st century we are headed for.

All the other corporations suck at integrating UI and the brain.

Watching people talk about the technology game as if what's happening right now (i.e. last years decisions) matters on a larger scale is like watching kindergardeners play soccer by mobbing the ball. While you're talking about HTMML in the app store, they're thinking about 2010, 2020.

If the printing press was just invented, you'd be saying monks had been copying books by hand forever, and were more open then the printing press.

Just not betting on Apple, that's all. I think/hope the "corporations" only have a couple of years left before open source takes over completely. At the moment they still have some hold on the hardware, but open source hardware will fix that. Apple hurts my brain because I can not amend it to my needs.

but open source cannot compete with apple. That is like saying an army with no generals, navy, air force or money will beat an army with a great general with stealth bombers, battleships, and a building filled with hundred dollar bills and gold bars. Just not gonna happen.

In my opinion Linux has already beat Microsoft and Apple on the desktop, why should it not be possible with hardware?

Open Source can have generals, too, and if money was the only issue, why didn't Microsoft beat Apple?

"Why didn't Microsoft beat Apple?"

Because the CEO of microsoft believes emulating the alpha male of a gorilla exhibit in the zoo is the best way to lead people?

Ship. Meet Sailed. Sailed, Ship.

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