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Comment by marc | Hacker News Reader

Interesting to see so many people having problems finding the app. What's wrong with clicking the 'App Store' button and downloading it from iTunes? You can configure your iPhone to then automatically download it.

Serious question. I'm sure you all have some good reasons to not use iTunes and wanting to download it from your phone. Curious to hear what those reasons are.

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Why would I want iTunes on my computer? I installed it only after losing and finding my phone to restore the phone; and it is annoying. It always pops up music whenever I plug my phone into charge. It also did some nonsense Outlook integration.

I never buy media through iTunes, I always use Amazon; so iTunes provides little, if any value on an ongoing basis.

Ah yes, if you don't use iTunes for anything else it wouldn't make sense installing it just for this.

If you dislike that popup iirc there is a service that starts up to facilitate this behavior, simply turn that to manual and you are good.

I use iTunes as my primary media collection, between iTunes Radio, Movies and TV I buy or rent, and even drop in videos from other sources so that I can AirPlay to my AppleTV. I don't sync my iPhone, but I use Automatic Downloading for music and videos, which is very convenient. This works because I can listen to those songs or watch those movies on my Mac or my iOS devices, so it's worthwhile to have it in my library. That is not the case with iOS apps, which take up space on my SSD and offer no functionality. So yeah, I usually resort to texting myself links to Apps to avoid downloading them from iTunes.

Fair enough. Never considered the disk space it occupies. Would be nice if the automatic downloading would work without downloading the app. (i.e. "Send to iPhone")

It works that way for videos. If I purchase a movie from iTunes it gives me the options to download it or not. The movie is available to stream (actually watch while it downloads, but the difference is indistinguishable) from other devices, so a similar option to avoid downloading the app into iTunes and get badges for updates would be nice.

You could purchase them in iTunes on your computer and then on your phone, go to App Store -> Updates -> Purchased and install from there.

Certainly, but my problem is that they then take up space on my computer and will put up a badge for app updates. I can guarantee that those apps will never be synced to a device.

Wouldn't you think typing the exact name of the app should show you that app first?

It seems pretty basic. When I type the exact name of a product on Amazon, I expect it to come up right away. And it does!

When the name of your product is a commonly used noun, good luck.

But it is literally the app name. Why isn't the rule to put the literal app name as the first result?

There's nothing wrong with that for people who choose to use it that way. But it kills discoverability (well, more accurately, there is no discoverability) for people who may hear about it without being given the direct link to this particular site or the page itself and attempt to search for it, only to find... they're not really sure what.

Valid point on worth-of-mouth. Since the app is relatively new, it might take a while for it to rank. (Not sure that's how the App Store works, but can imagine the more downloads/reviews the higher it will rank for its keywords)

Exactly. If I were the author I'd come up with a more unique name.

I run it on my phone, why wouldn't I install via my phone?

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