iOS 6 Breaks the App Store
pixiteapps.com
pixiteapps.com
While I think that this is bad on whole for developers/discovery as we knew it, it might just help users. Most of the time, users are either window shopping or looking for a very specific product.
Window Shoppers: "I want a photo editing app", chances are you are going to look at the first result and scroll down and see if a icon stands out. With the new model, you see the screenshots too. Could save time over, tapping into an app, tapping into reviews, and then tapping back twice. This means that the icon is downplayed in sales and the first screenshot has become extremely important.
Very Specific Product: "I'm looking for Gmail" It's quicker to just get the first result and confirm that it's actually what you are looking for. This however means that Apple has to be really confident in their search results (which aren't as great as they can be).
Net effect for developers: 1. App Store SEO is important. (It always was, but now I think developers will start to see it now in their app sales)
2. Your copy on the sales page should also grab users attention.
3. Your first screenshot is very important. Your screenshots should be good. (Link: http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/mobile-design-tutorials...)
4. Also note, categories have been removed from the app tab bar.
5. Ratings seem to matter a lot for the search algorithm but not for Featured apps
6. This is the "Chomp" update, and Chomp has been known to get content from Blogs and various sources, so you should be mentioned off the App Store too.
7. Facebook Likes also help since those are displayed.
Here's a cheat sheet that seemed useful: http://www.apptamin.com/ASO_Cheat_Sheet-v2.pdf
The ability of Apple apologists to rationalize bad behavior is astounding.
Personally I never use the iPhone interface to the appstore, I hated the way it used to be, and I hate this.
However, Apple have announced an iTunes revamp for next month, I suspect this is a preview of what that will be like.
I'm glad you included that preface, it provides useful context for the rest of your comment.
This will raise the bar for developers. It'll force them to do better app store SEO and it'll force the, to pay attention to design. Ugly apps aren't always necessarily bad but more ugly apps are bad than ugly apps that are good. This isn't Android. On iOS, users tend to judge an app by its icon and screenshots and they use pretty apps more than they open ugly ones. I didn't make the rules, I just play by them. Developers should be welcoming competition and with so many crap apps out there today it's probably better for good app developers to work on getting their rankings higher while the crap app makers languish at the end of the results.
While its bad for developers it's great for buyers. Guess what? There are far more buyers than developers on the app store. You may argue that if developers leave then iOS will die. Not so. Again, iOS users are a different animal. They can live with just a few big name apps from the major players. Android users tend to like lots of apps from indie devs and iOS users do too but if push came to shove they'd just keep their Angry Birds, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp and go on with their day. Screenshots are very important in the buying process and putting them front and center like this.
As developers we tend to think we're the center of the universe. We place far too much importance on our role than is deserved. Witness the outrage over Twitter's API. While developers were screaming about revolt the users barely noticed and kept tweeting away. Meanwhile Twitter pretty much gave us the finger because they know we'll be back because they have the users. Developers are like parents in a way. We raise a platform then the platform rebels. We threaten to cut them off but by that point the platform is all grown up and doesn't need our help anymore. iOS won't be hurt by developers leaving. If developers leave over not being found in search results then by definition they're leaving because no one's using the app. Who's going to miss an app that never gets used?
I want to see several results at once so I can pick which ones I want to look into more deeply. If I have to step through them one at a time with a noticeable delay at each step, I'm not going to be a happy buyer.
For a community all about entrepreneurship and building things for others you'd think we'd figure out by now that we are not the customer (unless you run some business directed directly at tech savvy people but you get my point).
Also, I am astounded at the hubris people display when faced with minor annoyances like this. Don't like the new App Store design? Well then it's fucking broken!
We are all a bunch of nobody's trying to scream louder than all the other nobodies about how smart we are and how we'd do a better job but most of the time its all bullshit. It takes some balls to think you're smarter and can do better than the most valuable company on earth. Every time someone is annoyed by something someone inevitably comes out and says its the wrong way to do it. Well there's an easy way to test if you're right or not. If the App Store stops making money any time between now and, let's be generous, the next time they change the App Store UI then you'll be right. But as long as they're making billions off this thing I feel pretty confident in saying they're doing something right and I sincerely doubt they'd do anything to harm their baby.
Think about it: it you run a company and have a successful product why would you change it? You wouldn't change it because some asshole designer has some extra time on his hands and thinks he came up with something prettier. No. You'd change it because you have the data that tells you it's going to make you more money if you do.
I'll never understand why people think these huge multi-bazillion dollar companies are being run by total morons. And make no mistake, if you write a blog post about how billion dollar product X is broken because they changed its color or something then you're taking the position that the company has as its decision makers a bunch of morons taking shots in the dark.
And one more thing: did you notice it? Someone did. Something changed and then someone complained about it (even going as far as to say its broken). Of course. Human beings hate all change and we'll fight it to the death even if it's for the better. Six months from now the same people who hate this will be same ones who will fight to keep the very design they hated (if they ever decide to change it) just to avoid change. Because change is scary and involves learning a new thing and what if you're not good at the new thing and the cycle of anxiety provoking thoughts begins...
I really hope people just stop with this. Every single change to any website makes that website not allowed to be criticized at all because its just us sheep being afraid of change. Fuck giving evidence for problems, talking about design implications or anything like that. Just give the simple line that humans are scared of change, pretend like that is the entire cause and feel good that you were able to imply people aren't smart because they made well reasoned arguments and you had a canned line ready.
How this comment got a single upvote is mindboggling to me.
Tangential: Why do I as a developer have to assume that users don't want what I want? Is it so wrong to think that a user might want to be able to see and evaluate 5 different apps at a time instead of 1? The past couple of years in tech have been spent wondering how to simplify UI for the sake of the user, to the point where we can't even trust them to have settings-- we need to know what's best for them before they log on to our websites or launch our apps, but is that really valid? It's easy to imagine that in 1983 when Microsoft Word was first announced, people needed total simplicity-- these "personal computer" things (probably a fad) were brand new and only available to the elite-- but this is the twenty first century and we have a whole generation of digital natives who will ask Google for an answer before they get in the shower-- and they're users too.
"Are we supposed to roll over and shut up because the almighty Gods at Apple decided this was the best way to do?"
No. But by the same token claiming something s broken within hours of it's release and without any measurable data is hyperbolic and at this stage in the game somewhat OTT. Much the same is true with mapping. As another poster has said, don'rt buy their products, or if you are developer, don't develop for the platform. Of course multinationals make mistakes. It's far too early to claim that this is the case.
"...this is the twenty first century and we have a whole generation of digital natives who will ask Google for an answer before they get in the shower-- and they're users too." And I'm willing to bet that they are still not representative of the majority of end users. It's not as if these users aren't catered for either - Android is an excellent mobile OS that is far more friendly to the end user that wants that level of control. No, the biggest issue we have now is the over inflated sense of entitlement that the many on the internet seem to have.
Yep. Totally wrong - just don't buy Apple. Kind of simple. It's not like there's no alternatives...
Even if these app store changes are a good tactical decision, in that based on user data, they are likely to increase immediate revenues (which shouldn't go without question simply because OMG it's Apple), it could still be a poor strategic decision if it begins pushing indie developers and the particular brand of innovation that they provide to other platforms. What platforms will the Angry Birds and Instagrams of the future build on first if it costs $250k in marketing get noticed on the App Store? Maybe Apple doesn't give a shit about that and is content to milk its money farm for all its worth, to hell with the long term consequences. That attitude has certainly been fashionable in American business lately, but that doesn't make it a wise approach. No company is immune to future innovation if it rests on its laurels. IBM wasn't. Microsoft wasn't. Apple isn't.
History is filled with stories of huge companies that have failed and no longer exist today. I wouldn't use your language 'total morons', but of course the people running them made poor decisions.
It's certainly possible that Web Albums is better than Picasa HD Lite, but c'mon. If you do a search for "photoshop" you will find competitors to Photoshop Express with higher ratings, but Photoshop Express still shows up ahead of them in the search results. Even more shockingly, when you search on the word "twitter," the official Twitter app shows up ahead of Tweetbot, and you won't believe what comes up when you search for "angry birds!"
Maybe this means the App Store is broken, or -- going out on a limb here -- it means that it's prioritizing titles that actually contain your search term over titles that don't. Maybe you think it's just completely insane that titles take priority over keywords and description text, but -- again, maybe this is just my crazy crazy way of looking at the world -- I kind of see the logic there.
Also, from your examples all the apps you mention are above 4 stars and have massive downloads. TweetDeck may be better than Twitter, but the official Twitter is not too shabby either.
Also I'm sick and tired about apps with title-SEO. Twitter is a known brand, however if Twitter were to be launched today as an iOS app it would be called "Short-message your friends" or some crap like that.
The app store doesn't have that data, so has to rely more on titles to try and how you a specific app if you do a specific search. If I search for 'Facebook' there's a high chance I want the official app, so it should come up high no matter if it's not the highest ranked.
Of course, it's plainly open for abuse. I wonder if they do, or could, take usage stats into account as well as ratings. If everyone is using the official Facebook app despite the fact it's crap, the user is probably trying to find it when they search for it, but it no one is using My Crappy Picassa App then it shouldn't be ranked very highly, even on a search for 'Picassa'. But then you have the bootstrapping problem of new apps being hard to find, even with exact searches. Perhaps some sort of inverse relationship between age and active users would work.
This is Apple we're talking about. They pride themselves on completely ignoring what "the market wants" for what they think is the best.
> I'll never understand why people think these huge multi-bazillion dollar companies are being run by total morons. And make no mistake, if you write a blog post about how billion dollar product X is broken because they changed its color or something then you're taking the position that the company has as its decision makers a bunch of morons taking shots in the dark.
Many, many large companies do have morons taking shots in the dark, based requirements and data that have little-to-no basis in reality, coupled with broken bureaucracy and individual incentives that are not even remotely aligned with what actually matters to their customers.
Apple isn't one of those companies.
That tactic works as long as we can wipe our asses with 100 dollar bills from their sales. If that doesn't happen, we might as well go where we are wanted.
I want search results that let me find what I'm looking for while minimizing the amount of junk I have to deal with along the way. I didn't realize that wanting search to do a good job at finding things was a sophisticated HN-user desire, out of touch with the common man. I guess that does explain all those times I've heard ordinary people exclaim while searching, "Dang! I found what I wanted too easily. I wish this thing was harder to use effectively!". :-)
When I see "Horoscope" in the name of a result, I skip it.
When I see the name is "Potty Chart" and the icon consists of a toilet with the seat up and a star hovering over the seat, I skip it.
When I see the name is "iAllowance" and the icon is a piggy bank, I skip it.
When I see the name is "Vinmeen Lite" and the icon shows a constellation, I think "what the heck is a vinmeen" and click. :-) (It turns out it is the Tamil word for "star").
I believe this redesign is a small step backward, and some sort of step forward. Showing a screenshot is a good idea but users are notoriously lazy and won't venture past even a few results so it creates a feedback loop where only the best performers get rewarded, further fueling that performance.
Possibly. But it does mean he's more qualified to view the App Store from a user's perspective, instead of a developer's. The App Store is designed for users, not for developers, which was his whole point.
My app (KEYBOX) has been on the app store for over a year and in magazines and whatnot and I've ASO'd it to quite an extent where the sales have stabilized but penetrating the first few pages for most searches in various languages still proves challenging.
Users fall into roughly 3 categories...
1. Actively looking for your app (be it by name or function) and will buy right away.
2. Not looking for your app but may buy if they stumble upon it.
3. Not looking for your app and and wouldn't buy even if they stumbled upon it.
We developers don't have to do much to get users from group #1, and #3 is simply not interested. We want to be in front of the eyeballs of members of group #2. Apple's rankings are still a black box but the higher up our apps appear in the listings the more likely they are to be seen and therefore purchased.
The app store is designed to make money above all else and if Apple wants to keep it that way it needs to make sure apps aren't hidden in the catacombs of the app store. This redesign my end up doing just that.
Yes, it will force developers to do better App store SEO, but that's not what we want. We want users to be able to use apps that have better design. To me this new layout makes it harder for users to compare apps, and thus makes it harder for them to find the ones that are the most well-designed.
If, as you say, the users naturally gravitate toward using more well-designed apps, then what's wrong with the current system? If I were you, I would worry that your new app -- even if it's revolutionary, even if it's the prettiest App in the App Store -- would be stuck at the bottom of the list, because Apple chose to dedicate more space to the flashy apps that are already ranked first.
Until then, this is a step backwards.
>> "This will raise the bar for developers. It'll force them to do better app store SEO"
How is this a good thing? Would you not rather spend time developing a great app. This just creates an opportunity for people to become more successful through gaming the store.
Trust me, after you've released your app to the store and you see the importance search ranking has (and how difficult it is to acquire the things you need to rank high) you will change your opinion on this.
We do not think we are the center of the universe. However, we are an important park of Apple's ecosystem. We helped build the App Store to where it is today.
As of right now, it feels like Apple is kicking us to the curb, Just read some of the app dev forums around the web. A lot of us lost money over Apple's decisions last summer. And we will continue to lose money.
Please come back and comment when you have released you first app. If spending thousands of marketing dollars on my already popular apps did not decelerate my sales freefall, then most new apps on the App Store have very little chance at succeeding.
A new paid app will never rank high on search. That's the state of things right now. For some reason, Apple's new search algorithm prefers free apps over paid apps and older apps over newer apps.
A sample scenario:
I am on the move and I am looking for an app, I search with a keyword x, but I can only see ONE app at a time so:
1- I can't quickly compare the first search results and pick one in particular
2- If I want to see all the search results I have to swipe as many times as the number of the search results themselves
3-Finally I have to remember what I liked best then swipe all the way back to it
How can this be convenient for me, especially if I am in a hurry?
I am not sure I am parsing this correctly - but I would guess that iOS users care a lot more about indie apps than Android users do. (iPad and iPod touch users even more than iPhone users) Is there any data on this?
As an iOS consumer, the indie developers are indeed the center of the universe for me (or at least the center of the App Store). But then I'm also considering an Xbox 360 for XBLA only :)
Good comment, but I don't agree with this part. This does very little to help "good app developers" or encourage competition.
The app store is very strongly biased towards the first few hits for a given search result. As a small to medium developer, if you're not in the top 5-10, depending on the keyword, you may as well not exist. And that ranking depends first and foremost on your ability to drive downloads to your app, and a distant second on your app quality.
This change will make the bias that much stronger towards the first 1-3 apps. They'll tend to stay there, while other apps will have that much harder a time to move up.
I LOVE that screenshots are more visible. It's great for users, and it's great for quality apps. I have a great app currently ranking in the lower range of top 10 for my targeted keyword, and slowly moving up because - in my opinion at least - it's higher quality than the apps above. Great icon, great screenshots, app looks and behaves great. So you'd think I'd be ecstatic about this change.
Actually, I'm worried this change will stop my app dead in its tracks, and further consolidate the top 1-3 positions. Can you explain to me how that's good for either of users, developers, or competition?
You are like a virgin trying to give advise to prostitutes on the street corner on how to improve their game. You literally have no idea what you are stepping into.
But you are properly right. Apple doesn't get that functionality is so much more important than estethics.
That's about it. There's not much more you can do.
titlePhrase 9 / authorPhrase 9 / subjectPhrase 9 / genrePhrase 9 / titleWords 3 / authorWords 3 / subjectWords 3 / genreWords 3 / titleExact 20 / authorExact 18
As you could see just stuffing keywords will guarantee you appear in lots of different searches but not necessarily ranked highly in any of them. Really depends on the type of app you sell.
However, I will look at apps one at a time and decide which one is best. On iOS 5 this meant clicking on each list item one by one, waiting (forever) for the app page to load, and eventually picking one. Allowing me to browse through apps one at a time and see all the information I need without ever leaving the screen seems like it would encourage discovery, not hurt it. I can even download the app right from the search screen AND I don't get thrown out of the App Store when I start the download so I can just download all the apps I want to try at once. This seems like a huge win to me.
Do other people browse the App Store differently?
The search results have always been less-than-stellar whether you could scroll through 25 results in 1s or 11s.
Shouldn't Google trigger a special view like they do when you search for "CITY_NAME weather" or "MOVIE_TITLE showtimes"?
The same is true of iBooks.
Apple has crappy search technology and even crappier implementations.
Re searches I'd expect a simple search for picasa to return apps with picasa in the name before other apps, no matter how popular they are.
The frustration I have with the App Store is that it doesn't have enough control over subcategories and filtering so it's hard to filter results or browse effectively as the categories offered are so broad.
If I buy the sixth app in the search results and only care to review two of the earlier ones, the old method was 5 touches before the one I'm buying is in front of my face, while the new method is 5 swipes, and with the new method I get more information about the three I previously rejected based on icon/name alone.
I'm pretty sure my own experience is that the item I am looking for is usually in the top 3 results, and I pretty much always review the top 3 results, so this feels like it will make it significantly easier for me to get to the apps I want to buy.
I'll have to try it out to know, though. One thing I lose here if the 3rd app is the one I want is the confidence that the one I really want isn't somewhere in 4-10. It will take some usage to know if the new design is better for me or not.
I browse by category.
Of course, this is negative for publishers who are trying to leverage the search field with "like names" and, for those publishers who get business from people searching for random apps in a particular category.
But, in general, this is good for people like me - who heard about a great new app by name on a podcast, and just want to try it out - having the extra data around the screenshot is useful.
No, if I search for X I want to get X, not a better rated app in the same category as X. If I search for "photo album" or something to that tune this argument would be valid.
Were they bought out or something? That page doesn't seem to indicate so.
If you want to be discovered in massive volume in the app store the only way is to get promoted or top ranked
The other cases are edge cases and frankly do not justify complaining about how such results are displayed.
Ouriel appsfire.com
Discovery by being promoted or top ranked only works for apps where downloads are impulse-driven, games being the primary example. Searches on the other hand are intent driven, initiated by users that want to get something done. And I don't think developers of such utility apps want massive downloads, they just want to make a profit.
Also your argument about discovery needing top ranking is circular. To get top ranking you first need discovery. This is where iTunes fails its customers - as it focuses on the new and the shinny, creating an environment where apps that build a reputation slowly have no place, which is why most apps in the app store are released in a fire and forget fashion.
The drop in sales concerned me so I paid for external advertising and marketing. It did not help.
One of my apps was featured by Apple twice. Now when you search for it by its exact name, some free spam app shows up above my app.
I am expecting another huge sale decline starting this month thanks to the new iOS6 App Store.
I'm not sure how anyone can see this change as being rational. This change is as bad for customers as it is for developers.
As for me, I had a good run on the App Store. But the world is not ending. It's just time to look into other income streams.
However, if you are building an app for Picasa, it better have "Picasa" in its name. The results are probably sorted by relevance (whatever that might be) and not only by ratings.
App store search has had a heavy bias towards the top 4-5 results. This will only make that bias stronger.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-27/apple-buys-chomp...
I'm not sure how much they had to do with this but they actively have people trying to solve "app store discovery". 95% of Apps I've ever purchased have been due to personal recommendation or web review. I don't think I've ever browsed the app store for purchase. (I know I'm in the minority)
And I am not sure what specifically makes the algorithm primitive.
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I wish I could try out apps in the App Store, that feature has been missing from day one.
I agree, however, that it remains very difficult to find apps directly in the App Store. I mostly go to the App Store via recommendations from friends and on websites since looking myself for an app, recently for example for a clock and timer app for my iPad (no longer necessary with iOS 6), has almost never been a success.
I know most apps are not expensive but neither online nor offline do I like to spend money for things I don't use, i.e., I need a possibility to check an app or any other product in advance. Reviews could replace such a check but there are not very helpful in the App Store either. In my case – living in a relatively small country – most apps, even popular ones, have no reviews at all …
What exactly his he whining about?
Search for a competing app and his doesn't come up first? Does he also complain to google (irony) about his page ranking? Why is this on the front page, let alone #1?
Edit: found one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=M...!
It looks like it works better on the iPad
And organizing the app store based on app-store SEO is wise, opens up a new market and forces devs to reconsider their app design.