Apple Changes App Ranks, Rejects Pay Per Install

tlhIngan writes "Recently, Apple changed their App Store ranking algorithm to stop ranking apps by download counts and instead use something else, akin to the recent Google changing of their Marketplace ranking algorithm to give more weight to apps' actual usage. As a side effect, Apple has also started rejecting pay-per-install apps ('freemium' apps that request the user to install companion apps to earn in-game currency). These apps were often used to game the charts by artificially inflating the download count and raising the ranking of the app in the App Store. No word on how companies like TapJoy (one of the largest 'culprits') will react."

Comments

"Freemium"?

[Gizzmonic]

Seriously, "freemium"? That has to be the worst mangling of the English language since "doorgasm."

Re:"Freemium"?

[gstoddart]

Seriously, "freemium"? That has to be the worst mangling of the English language since "doorgasm."

Oh, I thought malmanteau was pretty goofy. :-P

Re:"Freemium"?

[WrongSizeGlass]

Seriously, "freemium"? That has to be the worst mangling of the English language since "doorgasm."

Freemium is a perfectly cromulent word.

Re:"Freemium"?

[tgd]

I'm surprised anyone on Slashdot is old enough to have had doorgasms. Or floydgasms. Or stonegasms.

Although, you've gotta give to to kids today. Given my choice, I'd prefer a gagagasm anyway.

Re:"Freemium"?

[Kjella]

Compare:
"Freemium is a business model that works by offering a basic product or service free of charge (such as software, web services or other) while charging a premium for advanced features, functionality, or related products and services."
with
"In economics, a damaged good (sometimes termed "crippleware" or product with "anti-features") is a good that has been deliberately limited in performance, quality or utility,[1][2][3] typically for marketing reasons as part of a strategy of product differentiation."

They're exactly the same, "Freemium" is just the buzzword bingo name for it. A game demo is not a demo, it's a feature limited freemium model. Shareware is not shareware, it's a time limited freemium model. Welcome to reality 2.0, where everything has a fancier name.

Re:"Freemium"?

[jdgeorge]

I think there's a fancier name for the ancient tradition of giving unappealing things a more appealing name. As far as I can tell, this "reality 2.0" has been around for all of recorded history.

Re:"Freemium"?

[matrim99]

I believe that you have just taken a Synergistic Comparable Post Opportunity.

Syncompoop for the 2.0 folks.

Re:"Freemium"?

[ColdWetDog]

But 'euphemism' is too hard to pronounce or spell. It makes you talk like a fag and your shit gets all retarded.

Re:"Freemium"?

[david_thornley]

So you're saying we need a more appealing word or phrase meaning "euphemism"?

Re:"Freemium"?

[Carrot007]

> your shit gets all retarded.

Well at least we can all agree that constipation sucks.

Re:"Freemium"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Go go gadget gagagasm!

Re:"Freemium"?

[vux984]

And there was a time in this country, a long time ago, when reading wasn't just for fags and neither was writing. People wrote books and movies, movies that had stories so you cared whose ass it was and why it was farting, and I believe that time can come again!

Re:"Freemium"?

[fean]

While I agree that Freemium isn't new, I don't think that it meets your definition for 'crippleware'. For instance, Dropbox, Pandora and Rhapsody both offer free services that are enough for a majority of users. Dropbox has a 5-9% rate (depending on who is giving the numbers) of paying customers... the rest are using the free product. The free product isn't crippled, or have 'anti-features'... The only thing you pay for is additional space. Rhapsody offers free stations, and a limited ability to listen to specific songs. Pandora gives free stations, and a limited ability to skip over songs you don't like. Hell, even Redhat offers it's OS as 'Freemium'... you get 'premier support' if you pay for it ;-)

Demo != freemium
Shareware != freemium

Economics evolves as well, trying to keep up with technology. Things change, regardless of how much grumpy old men complain about it.

Re:"Freemium"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn some Greek. Like 10 minutes of it.

Re:"Freemium"?

[internettoughguy]

You also aren't allowed to call it Red Hat unless you pay for it :). You must have been meaning to say PNAELV (Prominent North American Enterprise Linux Vendor).

Re:"Freemium"?

[Anonymous Coward]

great movie.

Re:"Freemium"?

[theBully]

Read Orwell's 1984. There's a nice piece on language in it....

Re:"Freemium"?

[theBully]

and I believe that time can come again!

...possible! I did hear talk about a second coming. No, wait, that was about something else I think.

The most important thing in schools nowadays seems to be saluting the flag and singing a national anthem.

While I guess a comeback in education quality is possible (at least in theory), my advice is, don't hold your breath.

Re:"Freemium"?

[Runaway1956]

Yes, it most certainly is crippleware. You do not get all the benefits, unless you pay for them. You're "given" just enough to get you interested in the good stuff, you're hooked, so you start paying for the extras. That's what demos were all about, and shareware, and all the rest of the gimmicks. If the online game gives you ALL of the features and benefits, then asks if you would care to make a donation, then the game would not be crippleware.

I happen to play Runescape. I can play for free. But the free version is most definitely crippled. The same is true of any other online game.

Re:"Freemium"?

[Anonymous Coward]

It makes you talk like a fag and your shit gets all retarded.

Lol, is that a reference to Idiocracy?

Re:"Freemium"?

[zevans]

Read Orwell's 1984. There's a nice piece on language in it....

O RLY?

Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[intellitech]

No word on how companies like TapJoy (one of the largest "culprits") will react.

To say the least. What choice do they really have? Apple is Judge, Jury, and Executioner when it comes to their App Store.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[baldass_newbie]

What choice do they really have? Apple is Judge, Jury, and Executioner when it comes to their App Store.

Right? I can't believe some store owners want to have a say in what they sell.
Isn't this America?!?!?!?!

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[hedwards]

The problem is that they're not deciding what they sell, they're deciding what you can buy or use. Well, not me, I don't have an iPhone, and not those that have theirs jailbroken, but for a significant portion of the iPhone user base, this means that those apps are no long available.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[WrongSizeGlass]

* Cheaters get caught gaming the system.
* Apple reacts with a heavy hand.
* Others take the cheaters' place in the app rankings.
* Wash, rince, repeat.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[gstoddart]

The problem is that they're not deciding what they sell, they're deciding what you can buy or use.

Actually, they're targeting a rather annoying practice of app X saying "Hey, download App Z and get a free W".

Usually the suggested app is a complete piece of crap, but by having a more popular app push it, they might get more downloads than they otherwise would have. You just know that app X is getting paid to shill for other apps and getting a benefit for becoming rather tedious.

I've actually found this to be fairly annoying. Apple isn't telling me what I can I can buy or use ... they're cutting down on the ability of an app I've had installed for all of 5 minutes popping up to suggest that I install all sorts of crap.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[Anonymous Coward]

That "rinse."

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[Swanktastic]

Perhaps rather than an emotional reaction ("This sucks!"), the author meant TapJoy will react by coming up with another clever mechanism to game the system?

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[mjeffers]

How is this different from what any store does? If I go to Sears I may not be able to buy the same stuff I can get at Target. Walmart may choose not to stock albums by certain groups or NC-17 videos. In a slightly closer model, I can't get all the xbox arcade games I want to play on my WII or even my PC.

Given that there are other smartphones out there with other stores, in what way is Apple's behavior different from any retailer. They choose what they stock. If you don't like it, go somewhere else.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is "That is".

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[Dishevel]

There is no problem with Apples app store.
The problem is iPads, iPhones and iPods.
The real problem is people that own a home that they can ONLY furnish from Ikea.
WTF?
We would not allow that anywhere else in our lives.

Then again if you are fully aware with the situation and buy the device knowing its limitations then more power to you.
And. If you are an idiot who spends money on things with no information other than "It looked cool and all my friends have it."
Then you got what you deserved.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean "It is 'That is.'."

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[shadowrat]

They didn't decide what you can buy or use. You decided not to get an iphone. jailbreakers decided to jailbreak. It's true that if Apple had their way, they would force people to not jailbreak, but they can't. As it stands right now apple decides the terms on which their store is used and you decide if you want to shop there or not.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[BasilBrush]

We would not allow that anywhere else in our lives.

Printers, game consoles, and proprietary razor/blade systems to name three such other examples most of us let into our lives.

Sure, you can often often use non-approved inks in printers by getting syringe based refill kits. But if we're allowing hacks, then you can also Jailbreak an iPhone.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[mjeffers]

Then again if you are fully aware with the situation and buy the device knowing its limitations then more power to you.
And. If you are an idiot who spends money on things with no information other than "It looked cool and all my friends have it."
Then you got what you deserved.

While I wouldn't call people idiots I think this is the key point. Right now you either are saavy enough to know what you're getting and not buy an iPhone/iPad if it doesnt fit your needs or not techy enough that you'll never miss what you don't have.

I also think ever since the early days of video games we've let this into our lives repeatedly. If I wanted to play Sonic, I needed a Sega. If I liked Mario Bros more, I bought NES.

In my experience, the decision was basically similar to this. I got an iPhone because it did what I wanted and had a large and established app store. I knew it wouldn't have everything but nothing does. If the value of having something not availble though Apple is high enough, I can switch phones.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[Carrot007]

> Sure, you can often often use non-approved inks in printers by getting syringe based refill kits

Are you serious?

Refilled ink cartridges are avaialable everywhere, they may not be as cheap as doing it yourself but they are out there. And the yare pretty decent these days too.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[m.ducharme]

Clearly we need Open Source Shaving to free us from the grasp of proprietary shaving solutions that are designed to take control of our razors away from us. A Free/Libre razor solution would ensure that shaving people everywhere can enjoy choice and power in their shaving life. One might even say that Free Shaving is a fundamental human right.

RMS should get on this.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[robot256]

Refilled ink cartridges are avaialable everywhere, they may not be as cheap as doing it yourself but they are out there. And the yare pretty decent these days too.

But they still void the warranty on your printer. At least the manufacturer doesn't try to brick it if they find out.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[vijayiyer]

The Linux of razors is the straight razor. It always works, doesn't require proprietary blades, and is very powerful. And if you don't know how to use it, you can end up in a world of hurt.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[mini me]

The real problem is people that own a home that they can ONLY furnish from Ikea.

Virtually all consumer electronic devices suffer from that problem. I don't see any easy way to change the software on my microwave, for example. I don't even see an easy way to install another OS on Android phones, which are supposed to be the most geek friendly of all.

I do agree it is a real problem, but I don't see how it is specific to Apple. The PC is one of the few consumer devices that can be "furnished" by other vendors.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[MightyYar]

they're deciding what you can buy or use.

Well...

Well, not me, I don't have an iPhone

So what's the problem, then? Apple has a nice smartphone, but they don't even come close to controlling the market. Buy a different phone, right?

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[djp928]

You've seen the man, right? Do you think he even knows what a razor is?

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[Juanvaldes]

You have seen pictures of RMS right? I doubt he even knows what a razor is let alone the tyranny of living under P&G iron rule.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[CannonballHead]

I am here only because I want to quote the above poster, who said, "You mean 'It is "That is."'"

Actually, to be more pedantic/picky/what-have-you, I don't think you use two periods. I believe the period inside the quote (the one for "That is.") works for the rest (the "You mean" sentence).

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[djdanlib]

YET.

I'm sure they would love to get away with that, and other devices are setting the precedent. It's only a matter of time.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[rsborg]

The problem is iPads, iPhones and iPods.
The real problem is people that own a home that they can ONLY furnish from Ikea.
WTF?
We would not allow that anywhere else in our lives.

Really? Try purchasing (from 1995 - 2005) a PC without Windows.
Or try purchasing

I posit that your idealized view that we should always have options and freedom of choice (which I agree with) is an un-natural situation, it's only enforced by governmental regulations, international free standards, and group action.

Both consumers and businesses really want functionality (that's usable) first. Folks (and businesses) often don't have time or capacity to actually review competitive options unless the cost of the product requires this (say, home/vehicle purchase for a family), and even then are not very good at it. Competitive options for their own sake aren't usually sought after.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[m.ducharme]

All the more reason why he needs to get involved with Open Shaving! We can give the man a safety razor, sell him a support contract to go with it, and in a year or two, he'll be ready to evangelize for Free/Libre Shaving and will have some kick-ass before/after pics! I see wins all around!

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[m.ducharme]

Who better to evangelize for Open Shaving! With a safety razor, an optional support plan, and a freshly shaven mug, who wouldn't be convinced? It might even make him a more credible spokesman for Open Source Software, outside of geek circles of course.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[Draek]

How is this different from what any store does? If I go to Sears I may not be able to buy the same stuff I can get at Target. Walmart may choose not to stock albums by certain groups or NC-17 videos.

It's different in the way that you can go to Target to begin with.

And yes, the PS360Wii situation is similar, but people overall don't give a crap because most of the world sees consoles as overpriced toys rather than productivity tools. Which was how companies marketed smartphones, and PDAs before that, until the iPhone came around.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[BitZtream]

That is probably the best Linux to non-geek item comparison I've ever seen ... and I don't even like Linux :)

I'd argue the 'always works' part ... but equally so for both Linux and the razor ... you can easily screw both of them up by mistreating them.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[MeateaW]

Does grammar in quotations apply outside quotations? I failed english at school so I can't answer this one. I do know that if it were programming we'd be in trouble for unterminated constants in the replace string we were writing. Is a correction a replace string for the above post? I know of a friend once who enabled automatic replace in his IRC history when appropriate strings were said after the fact. So someone could write: "I just popped hard" and then go "oh crap!" "s/popped/pooped" and in his IRC history it would change "popped" to "pooped" There was much lulz when I realised you could change what *anyone* wrote with this. Changing his IRC history to show people (including himself) saying all kinds of retarded things etc.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[BasilBrush]

Methods to jailbreak an iPhone and app stores to use once you have done so are just as available. They're still both hacks. Neither are approved by the device manufacturer, they say they'll invalidate your warranty, but you're free to do them if you want.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[CannonballHead]

Well, to at least some extent, punctuation inside quotations is enough to end the sentence that includes the quote. For example:

He replied, "That's what I said!"

Nobody would write this:

He replied, "That's what I said!".

Similarly, then... if the quote includes a quote, you don't include extra punctuation; e.g., it should be something like this:

He replied, "And then I said, 'That's what I said!'"

You would not write:

He replied, "And then I said, 'That's what I said!'.".

In other words, if you are terminating your sentence, and your quote terminates in the same way, then the quoted section's termination applies to the "parent" sentence as well. If the punctuation differs - for example, you want to end with an exclamation point but the quoted portion does NOT end in an exclamation point - I'm not exactly sure how the rules apply. I know you CAN put the punctuation inside the quotes, but that could get confusing - was the quote supposed to be excited and thus marked with an exclamation point, or was the person quoting the one who was excited...

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly we need Open Source Shaving

Why? RMS doesn't!

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[Kalriath]

Only in your ass-backwards country. Here, the manufacturer has to prove that that the third party component is what damaged the product.

Hang on though, it's the same there, in America!

No, they don't void the warranty.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[hedwards]

The problem is that it's not like a normal store. If Walmart refuses to carry a game because it's violent, you've got other options. However if Apple doesn't want you to have an app for whatever reason, you have to void your warranty in order to install it.

Which is the point, this isn't like a normal store this is one where Steve Jobs tells you what you can and cannot buy.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[exomondo]

The real problem is people that own a home that they can ONLY furnish from Ikea.

And how is that a problem? It's their choice, leave it to them.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[exomondo]

The problem is that it's not like a normal store.

How is that a problem? It's not supposed to be like a normal store.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[macs4all]

The problem is that they're not deciding what they sell, they're deciding what you can buy or use.

Really? I must not have seen the law that says that all Earthicans must buy an iOS device.

Can you cite the Statute or Executive Order where that was made the law of Planet Earth, or even the USA?

What are the penalties for NOT purchasing an iOS device? Some sort of Jail time, I'd imagine, right?

Oh, wait...

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[BasilBrush]

Same applies to jailbreaking an iPhone.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[MightyYar]

If Walmart refuses to carry a game because it's violent, you've got other options.

Games is your example? Sony, Nintendo, and MS have absolute and total control over the catalog of games on their systems, and then you have the additional preferences of Walmart to contend with.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[Dishevel]

What would you call people who spend hundreds of dollars on something that they have no knowledge of?
I think that situation is made for the word idiot.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[Dishevel]

Hmmm.
Is it against the law for you to change the firmware on your microwave?
Because Apple, Sony and Microsoft all want you in jail for modifying the hardware you buy.
Not the same at all really. Is it?

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[Dishevel]

But could they take you to court for uninstalling windows?
Was there a federal law 1995-2005 that could put you in prison for changing your video card.
Once the long arm of the law steps in and smacks you upside the head for daring to modify things you own the world needs some fixing.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[Dishevel]

Read the whole post.
Or not.
But you do not sound nearly as smart if you only read part of a post and then attempt to slam it by making a point already in the post.
Again though. As I stated.
I you posted that full well knowing the limitations of attacking without reading then more power to you. :)

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[mini me]

A computer is a computer. It doesn't matter what form factor it is in.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[exomondo]

Read the whole post.

I did.

But you do not sound nearly as smart if you only read part of a post and then attempt to slam it by making a point already in the post.

I asked a question that was not answered in the post.

Again though. As I stated. I you posted that full well knowing the limitations of attacking without reading then more power to you. :)

That series of sentences - if you can even call them that - don't make any sense.

Re:Well, I doubt they'll like it.

[badkarmadayaccount]

You'll have to prove it in court. Good luck.

Ignore the apple haters

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignore the apple haters, as you should in any thread. They experience an inverse effect of the JOBS RDF, where their personal reality bends and distorts until Apple is always wrong. It makes them do dumb things like promote flash and hate unified, consistent UIs.

Anyway, I'll be glad that Apple is changing their rank system. Searching for apps in the interface is useless because companies gaming the system put endless piles of utter, complete crap. If browsing on the phone pretty much only the hand-picked featured items are worth a look.

Re:Ignore the apple haters

[Anonymous Coward]

Which "apple haters" do you speak of? I actually haven't seen much of that, tbh.

Re:Ignore the apple haters

[hedwards]

I'm guessing from the tone that it's those of us that refuse to recognize the perfection of St. Steve and his magical turtlenecks and how he just wants everybody to be happy in his utopian society. Or something like that.

Re:Ignore the apple haters

[geminidomino]

posting to undo mis-moderation

Re:Ignore the apple haters

[david_thornley]

If you haven't seen many Apple haters, you've been avoiding the apple threads.

Apple haters typically refuse to consider that an Apple product might be bought for good reasons. They come up with minor issues (such as non-user-replaceable batteries) to claim that Apple products are bad. They frequently claim Apple computers are way overpriced, comparing the Mac price with the cost of other computers with similar CPU and memory specs and ignoring other features. They often mock any praise for Apple as being due to Steve Jobs's reality distortion field or a desire to have a sexual relationship with Jobs.

I find them just as annoying as Apple fanbois, and more common on Slashdot.

Re:Ignore the apple haters

[geminidomino]

Your point is salient, but your specifics are, I think, a little too forgiving. Non-replacable batteries and crappy output ports *are* an issue for anyone who doesn't consider a $2-300 electronic gadget "disposable" every year. That said, I did buy an iPod classic since I have the technical knowhow to fix the issues myself and you can't beat it in price-per-gig.

Other than "OSX," (which is of debatable value. As they say/said in the Monsetary, "All OSes Suck") most of the "Other Features" of Macs you mention apply to edge use-cases that are either the domain of "power users" who can duplicate them on non-Mac OSes with enough work, or so obscure they're not really worth considering when figuring "bang for the buck."

Re:Ignore the apple haters

[david_thornley]

User-replaceable batteries have tradeoffs, in that the necessary casing is bulky and either leads to a larger and often less convenient product, or reduced battery size. My first iPhone went three years before dying to something other than the battery. The cost to replace is fairly reasonable, considering what I've paid for specialized batteries before.

Many people find Mac OSX to their liking (I prefer Ubuntu, myself), and buying a Mac is the only straightforward way to get it. Furthermore, features like sturdy laptop casings are hardly obscure and specialized. I've never had telephone support so good from any other place, and that's worth something. PC World considered the Macbook Pro to be the best Windows laptop for more than one year. Worth the price? I couldn't say; that's up to the purchaser.

There are good reasons to buy assorted Apple products, and good reasons not to. I'll get along fine with people who take that view.

Re:Ignore the apple haters

[Draek]

I've seen more people refuse to consider that an Apple product might be bought for idiotic reasons than the other way around. You say your MBP was the best bang for your buck you could find, ten people jump at you with not-so-comparable Dells and Toshibas while a Thinkpad user sulks in the corner.

You say your mother bought himself an iPhone as a fashion accessory, however, and a hundred people jump out of the woodworks to "correct" you on how the iPhone is really the best phone out in the market, and how she probably used those "trash" Nokias and Androids that nobody but dirty Apple haters would touch and she decided on the iPhone because she wanted something better than that and the incredible looks were just a bonus. In spite, of course, of having never even met your mother to begin with.

Re:Ignore the apple haters

[MeateaW]

You forget that a phone "Dying" is subjective. My iPhone 3g still works. But my god after 12 months its battery lasted MAYBE 4 hours if you ever used the device. 24 months later? 36 months later? Old nokias can last 10 years+ AND you can replace the battery so it still holds a charge. Good luck using your iPhones 5 years after heavy use. And that has nothing to do with wether it will "work" (because it still should, but without significant battery life).

Re:Ignore the apple haters

[jo_ham]

But now you're comparing an old candybar phone to a smartphone - of course a 10 year old Nokia phone will last forever (especially with a new battery on it) - those old candybars ran for ages before you needed to charge them. When smartphones came along, even with the bigger battery capacity, the battery life went down because the power consumption was much higher (more powerful CPU, big screen, wifi radio, GPS chip etc).

My iPhone 3G is still working fine to this day with good battery life. I'm sure the battery probably isn;t as good as it was when I bought it (just after release), but it hasn't degraded to the point where I have noticed, and I use it every day. I'd love to upgrade, but not because the 3G is broken or has poor battery life, so that's my anecdote to go with yours dying after 4 hours after a year. I still use mine every day and charge it every two days. The 3G and Wifi are left in "enabled" mode.

I can replace the battery if I need to, but as it stands now, at least a year outside of my contract (I switched to a rolling 1 month contract with my provider), it it still working just as well (subjectively) as when it was new. If the battery does clap out then I can replace it by sending it to Apple or getting a third party battery and doing it myself.

What Apple realised with the iPod and iPhone was that for the vast majority of consumers there was no need to have an easily replaceable battery since the device would either be replaced in the 3-4 year lifespan of the battery (with the lithium polymer batteries they use), or they would send it in for repair (or do the repair themselves). Adding the extra size and complexity of a battery bay made the device less appealing (size and weight) for a tiny gain in usability.

Certainly there are those who disagree - you can't please everyone with product design, but ultimately in those cases you either buy something else or live with the nature of a mass market consumer product. In my case that's the lack of front or side ports on the iMac - a beautiful machine that fits my needs perfectly, except for the fact that all the ports are on the back - something I "fixed" by using a USB hub making it easy to use USB memory sticks.

Re:Ignore the apple haters

[WCLPeter]

I didn't look into it too much, in other words I don't know if the iPhone 3g applies, but Apple does swap out the battery if you take to an Apple Authorized Repair centre.

You should also have looked into whether or not you could have had the battery replaced for free, a year seems a little too short for the battery to lose more than half its operational life. My third gen iPod touch, obviously not the same thing, which I've owned for more than a year still gets me more than 12 hours of music playing time and nearly eight hours of music / web browsing time, I use it all day every day too.

Now my 5th Gen 30Gig iPod Video doesn't get more than 5 hours of playback, even less if I have a rousing game of Tetris. ;-) Luckily I have an independent Apple Authorized Repair Centre in town so I can get the battery replaced whenever I want but since I use it mainly in the car now anyway, my car adapter doesn't sync up correctly with the Touch, its always hooked to power so I haven't had much of a need to replace the battery.

Re:Ignore the apple haters

[tivoKlr]

"you say your mother bought himself an iPhone"? I think you know more about dt's mother than you're letting on...

Re:Ignore the apple haters

[macs4all]

You say your mother bought himself an iPhone

I don't care about your private life, or what his name is!

Wow, a useful app store change

[mitler]

Apple actually made a useful change to their app store rules for once! I used to get annoyed by this practice while playing iMobsters by Storm8, one of the companies that employ this tactic. I'm certain it made their apps appear more popular than they were.

no more PetWars?

[mekkab]

TitanWars? Other lame-o-wars game getting into the "top apps" list simply because they confer in-game benefits for Elimnate/We Rule players?

GOOD RIDDANCE.

This is actually positive...

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter if 90% of the time Apple is in the wrong, they're making a positive change for the user experience and it'll likely improve the lives of many small dev shops. I'm all for stringing Apple up when they're in the wrong, but you look like a tool when you do it regardless of context.

That's unpossible!

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, it's almost inconceivable!

Rankings

[Ender_Wiggin]

I wonder what they're using now to base the rankings. The wording of the summary is bad; Apple is not monitoring how many times people open apps etc. My guess is that it's likely how many ratings the app got in the app store and what the average rating was.

Re:Rankings

[Anonymous Coward]

With iOS 4.3.2 they are asking people to opt in to exactly this kind of monitoring.

Re:Rankings

[wvmarle]

In case of Google (no experience with Apple in this respect - and anyway the linked article is as much about Google as it is about Android), I can think of a few points they can include. I suppose these data points will also be available to Apple for their apps.

• Total downloads of course.
• Retained install ratio (on my developer console of the Android Market I can see how many total downloads there are, and how many current installs - the number of installs should be a good measure for the number of actual users). Apparently the system keeps track of that.
• User ranking: number of stars awarded, total number of votes on the app.
• For ad supported apps: the number of ads shown in the app is a measure of usage of the app.

There may be more to it, such as links to an app from other sites, number of views by people browsing the market, maybe even manual adjustment. Maybe take popularity of other apps from the same publisher into account. Localisation: apps that are popular in one region are maybe not interesting for another region (e.g. language, or apps that give info about restaurants in a certain area). We don't know what they really use. But the above list would be my shortlist of data points to use when designing a rating system.

This is needs to happen more

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft, Mozilla and Google needs to black list toolbars that sneak in to programs, also this is why flash is banned, because it "hooks" you with videos and games and then is used for adverts that drain your battery and bandwidth (especially on restricted data plans) and spyware.

Apple is keeping it's iPad free of pests, and two of my friends are getting iPads after I told them about not having to deal with spyware and junk from these bundleware garbage.

Go Apple, I'd rather have their plants than spyware zombies.

Re:This is needs to happen more

[MeateaW]

Why not give the user a choice? Saves battery unless you click on it. Problem Solved!

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[krishna12]

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