Is the App Store Broken?

A recent post by Instapaper's Marco Arment suggests that design flaws in Apple's App Store are harming the app ecosystem, and users are suffering because of it. "The dominance and prominence of 'top lists' stratifies the top 0.02% so far above everyone else that the entire ecosystem is encouraged to design for a theoretical top-list placement that, by definition, won’t happen to 99.98% of them." Arment notes that many good app developers are finding continued development to be unsustainable, while scammy apps are encouraged to flood the market.

"As the economics get tighter, it becomes much harder to support the lavish treatment that developers have given apps in the past, such as full-time staffs, offices, pixel-perfect custom designs of every screen, frequent free updates, and completely different iPhone and iPad interfaces. Many will give up and leave for stable, better-paying jobs. (Many already have.)" Brent Simmons points out the indie developers have largely given up the dream of being able to support themselves through iOS development. Yoni Heisler argues that their plight is simply a consequence of ever-increasing competition within the industry, though he acknowledges that more app curation would be a good thing. What strategies could Apple (and the operators of other mobile application stories) do to keep app quality high?

Comments

Too many apps, too much appcrap

[Animats]

There should be far fewer "apps". Any "app" that just displays content should be a web site. Once you get rid of the appcrap, there probably is no need for more apps than there were boxed software products.

Re:Too many apps, too much appcrap

[nwf]

Most apps perform way, way faster all the while using significantly less data than do web sites. This may be more a ding against most web sites, but is valid none the less. I use a number of apps that can fetch their data and display it before a mobile browser has even pulled down the main content, let alone the 20 JavaScript libraries, 12 crap affiliate site icons/links and the countless images that add nothing.

However, some apps are worse than their mobile web site versions, e.g. most news sites.

My own company's mobile app, which I developed, can typically refresh a page in under 25 ms via 3G. Plus, customers prefer the apps to the mobile web sites.

Welcome to application development

[blueshift_1]

I feel like this is basically the same story as Desktop application development. A few started, as time went on and it was profitable many people entered the market, and eventually the main market is controlled by a few key players. There will be a handful of smaller companies making modest profits on really useful tools, but a lot of it will go unnoticed by the masses. People download what they need. Period. If your app doesn't apply to the masses, then the masses aren't going to buy it. But if it is useful enough and polished enough, there is a good chance it will flourish (though like anything viral - some ridiculous things will get through).

People expecting their marketing for free

[jolyonr]

Too many people want to get rich by selling apps and expect Apple to pay for the marketing of their apps for free on the App Store.

The App Store serves one purpose - not to promote your apps, but to make money for Apple.

If you want to go into business selling an app for iOS then you need to have some plan in place to market it. That doesn't mean sticking it on the App Store and hoping for the best.

If you can't afford to market your app (either by paying for advertising somewhere or just physically spending your own time promoting it) then you really shouldn't waste money or time to develop it either.