Apple’s App Store is quickly becoming a hotbed for elite developers looking to capitalize on the store’s easy distribution model and huge exposure opportunities. Since the store’s launch less than two months ago, we’ve seen reports of apps reaching massive user bases and and collecting millions of dollars. But while the store has seen its share of its successes, it also has its flaws – most notably in the way it exposes users to apps in the first place.
The most glaring exception on the store is the lack of an all-time most popular applications list. While there are a pair of lists for current “Top Apps” (one for paid apps, the other for free), the list changes on a daily or even hourly basis. In turn, the most recently released applications dominate the list, with over half of the current list constituted by apps that have been released in the last ten days. This is great for Apple – most people turn to the Top Apps first when they open iTunes, and it’s in Apple’s best interest to always give them something new to play with.
But what about the apps that everyone should have? The ones that have seen hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of downloads, but no longer reach the top app lists because most people already have them? Shazam, the app that lets you hold up your iPhone to a speaker to figure out what song is playing, is currently ranked 16th, so it won’t appear on the home page. Tap Tap Revenge, one of the platform’s most popular games, has fallen to 20th. And Twitterific – a Twitter client that seemed cemented in the top 10 soon after the store’s launch, seems to have dropped off the list entirely.
If the current situation persists, even the very best apps will always lose out to the up-and-comers – a situation that only encourages developers to pump out applications as quickly as possible, rather than creating something really useful. Apple devotees are known for valuing polish and functionality – it would be a shame for the store to fall prey to the spammyness seen on other platforms.
This is a big reason why it is so vital to have comprehensive review sites that aren’t driven by download count, or just user reviews.
http://www.AppVee.com – Top 10 apps stay on the top 10 until they are ousted by an even better application. We offer in-depth reviews and accompany every review with a video walk-through, user reviews, ratings based on categories, direct links, and full information.
What we will need to see is a gradual shift towards review sites to discover the best applications, instead of looking towards the App Store to give that to us.
thanks for the spam
bolson.wordpress.com for real writing.
Wow, that was really enlightening. Thanks for sharing.
The current App Store process is very broken. Not just for developers, but for Apple as well. Because Apple displays the most recently released apps by default, developers are strongly incentivized to release new versions of their apps as rapidly as possible to keep their apps on the first page of the app list.
This is counter-productive for everyone concerned. Developers waste time submitting apps with no substantive changes, Apple continues to have a ridiculously long backlog for how long it takes their QA department to approve an app for the App Store, and users must run the gauntlet of a fragile update process every time they upgrade an app.
I actually think this is a good thing. Good apps will always become popular through thousands of sites reviewing them and talking about them. It’s new and upcoming apps which need to get at least an initial chance before they are shot down if they are not good.
If only the best apps were in the top lists, then any new app will have a very slim chance of even getting evaluated in the first place. While I do agree that this introduces a level of spaminess in the system, but I think that the sheer number of users will help moderate that spam.
Cool!
Cry me a river techcrunch. Another personal opinion article which most will disagree with.
It’s all built on the iTunes Music store engine. So sales charts are modified the same way. Music charts skew towards “what’s popular now” with greatest hits falling into “essentials” and other categories over time. Cram enough stuff into any platform and it will eventually creak.
I don’t understand why people think that the number of downloads an application has had is relevant to its popularity! There are a lot of applications that have been downloaded so much, but have very low ratings. Just because an application was downloaded 350,000 times does not mean it’s actually popular or enjoyed. In fact, when you notice it has 1-2 stars, you quickly realize how out of place it really is. Take a look at the Top 25 list, and count how many are actually 4 and 5 star applications.
Ratings should really be the metric that Top applications are sorted by. And until then, the Top lists are quite meaningless.
The ratings don’t tell much either–have you really looked at individual reviews? Many whine that something is more than 99c, others make no sense at all. You don’t know which people have even tried the app. Then you add on all the competitor plugs, some blatant, some sneaky. The ratings have to be taken with a grain of salt, especially the overall rating.
Back to topic, more ways to sort thru the ever-increasing numbers would be helpful. Sub-categories, a “new apps” list versus a “newly updated apps” list would be nice. Mobile app stores have been around for a very long time and have been manipulated with suspect “updates” for a long time, too, so it’s not surprising.
Agreed.
We all know, that it is not very difficult to formulate a new algorithm to make things work properly.
In my opinion, the App store just opened up and is still a lot shaky. Give it some time and more posts like these, it is going to end up just fine
Less bitching, more buying!
Apple might be struggling to organize the App Store (and it will only get worse as the inventory grows)… BUT they are are failing to enable application building. We’ve been waiting in the App Dev Center for over three weeks and have a functional, ready-to-go app built.
Just waiting…
The power of iPhone Apps is its ability to create scale and power massive numbers of developers / applications. As it stands though, the inventory doesn’t change and very little new content is produced.
Nice info, now everyone knew this mysterious, can anyone do the same?
If developers update frequently their apps and add new features, then they will stay on top as a updates app is treated as a new release.
The amount of downloads does not prove than an app is great or not, unless the price was high too. So apps were just downloaded many times because there were no alternatives.
Top App list goes on to up to 50 on the iPhone and up to 100 on iTunes
I like the fact that the lists keep changing. It could become problematic if developers do keep revving their apps just to bump up their listings, but as it is now it’s much more interesting to find new apps.
great news
oh apple is good,but i think they will die
I wouldn’t be suprised if the top list was comprised of the top downloads for the last X days… otherwise if it was all time downloads a hugely popular app would get stuck at #1 for ever.
As the developer for Scribble which was in the Top 50 for over a month and has been jumping in and out since, it is quite interesting and frustrating trying to figure out what happens. Whatever it is, it is quite true that the Top 50 really is the place to get to if you want thousands upon thousands of downloads a day.
There is a web-based interface that’s easier to scan because it has short descriptions for new additions. It doesn’t list all of the apps yet, but it’s a nice list because it helps pull a bunch of junk apps out:
http://m.macupd....com/iphone.php
There is also an iPhone interface:
http://m.macupdate.com/
Having run a store myself, the problem you have with top 10 lists is that the 10 really good applications get listed there … and then they never change. Ever.
Even when a new (and good) application comes along, the download scores and percentages of the others are so high that it takes a truly herculean effort for them to get into number 10. This is because there are too many people who never venture beyond that list when deciding what to download.
In short, however you do a top 10 is going to be flawed. Yes Apple’s is broken, but solving it the way TechCrunch would like will mean it is will stay broken – just in a different way.
Perhaps a second top 10 list with the most usefull apps will help…
Your wish is my command:
http://www.148a...e-os-apps-ever/
Sorry it took me so long.