This isn’t an accident. One attribute that has helped the App Store reach its upcoming billion download milestone so quickly is the fact that its featured App Lists are constantly churning – even the most popular applications probably won’t be on the top lists a few weeks down the line. This ensures that users who pop into the store will always have some new, quality apps to try out, boosting downloads and giving new applications a chance to shine.
But it can also be frustrating for new iPhone owners, who visit the store unsure of what they should download. This isn’t to say they’ll leave empty handed – there’s always a variety of great apps being showcased on the App Store. But the classics that everyone else already has, like Tap Tap Revenge, Ocarina, and Shazam often aren’t featured on the App Store’s homescreen any more, so new users might miss out on them. Apple has made progress since I wrote about this issue last August, now allowing users to browse through apps by category, each of which features its own top lists. But the need for a more readily available all-time leaderboard still remains.
To give an idea of how popular these applications have been, ComScore recently reported that 32% of all iPhones and iPod Touches have a version of Tap Tap Revenge installed, making it the platform’s most popular game ever with around 6.5 million installs of TTR and 3 million installs of its sequel. But a new user wouldn’t know it from the App Store’s homepage – they’d have to drill down to the Games section, where TTR2 is currently ranked as the 7th most popular free game. iBowl, a Wii-like bowling game, is on 25% of all iPhones according to the same ComScore report, and isn’t featured on the Games section at all.
There have been many other tweaks suggested for the still-nascent App Store, including a section for higher-priced premium apps and a new method for calculating popularity that measures how much money an app has gained, not just the number of times it has been downloaded (the current system tends to strongly favor cheaper apps). Apple has done an incredible job building this platform and masterminding its massive popularity. Now it just needs to give users a better way to find the cream of the crop, not just the latest fad.
Me loves the apps, but question: when RIM and GPhone / Android really get going will this be a marginalized business?
We are currently working on our first set of Apps which will be on iPhone, Android, and Blackberry (8x 9x).
Soon it won’t matter what platform you use.
Will Symbian matter?
Interesting Article Jason! Did not realize that Apple were doing this with the Apps store helping the new billion app celebration.
My iPhone app got a slight uptick in purchases yesterday after this sweepstakes was announced
I have a hard time beveling those numbers, since I don’t know anyone who bought “Koi Pond.”
I bought it.
I own it, and it’s one of the few apps that I’ve never removed from my phone later.
Apps are a waste of money. Download it once, hardly use them again. I want my $50 back.
Why did you spend 50$ on apps in one shot to begin with? I think it would be cool if there was a secondary market for people who want to sell their “used” apps after they no longer have a use for them like what we use to do with old video games and the like.
Jon
http://WoodMarvels.com – Create Unique Memories
I bought the I am Rich app and I haven’t used it yet! It doesn’t do anything! ;P
Instead of “All-Time Top Paid Apps”, it should be “All-Time Top Paid Games and Entertainment”.
I was surprised the google app wasn’t on the list.
Apple has founded a parallel business
Is it too soon for a Classic Apps section?
It isn’t that the apps are great.
Rather, it’s the intense marketing efforts.
i bought a lot of apps when i first got the phone…bought into their marketing hype (which i later understood that they spend extravagant millions and millions on). it worked at first…downloaded a lot of them thinking i was getting great content. until later i realized i only use maybe 1 or 2 on a sporadic basis. it feels like they are trying to focus and sell the apps to take a lot of customers’ money…useless, useless, useless. i wish i had my money back and i’ll be more careful with believing apple’s hype.
Well, that’s how marketers work in the first place: have you believe that you would need the app (or any particular technology feature) so that you would be part of the hip and cool crowd. But they don’t tell you that 1. the app isn’t all that user-friendly because there are so many “great features”, 2. you don’t actually have so much time to use all the apps in the first place. It’s not just about “apple’s hype”; it’s how consumerism is.
People find out about all time classic apps from word of mouth, apple shouldn’t necessarily be advertising them in-store. It would be nice to have the data available, but you don’t walk into a gamestop and expect to see posters for Doom ][, do you?
1 beeeellion.
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For example find all the racing apps
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I have to admit, the choices surprised me. The ones I have aren’t on the list, and I have no use for, or desire to have, the ones listed
It frustrates me when people download useless applications and are unhappy. This is why it’s important to create useful and valuable applications, that will save the iPhone user money. For example, there is an application titled Future Gas Prices, Now! on the app store in Canada. It will tell you the next day’s gas price ahead of time, so you know whether to fill your tank tonight or tomorrow. It can be downloaded here: http://tinyurl.com/fgpnow and the money savings will add up in no time! Now we’re talking useful applications for a mobile device!!
I love my original iPhone, but I’ve never downloaded even a single app for it. I went to the App Store once, and only once, and, 1) Didn’t see anything compelling, and, 2) Found the place confusing to navigate with non-functional search and filtering. Who has the time to look through a gazillion apps one-by-one to find something interesting?
I don’t even use some of the apps that came with the iPhone. The only reason I got the thing was to have a phone with which I could check my email and that had an included iPod. Surfing on the thing is an abjectly miserable experience with that tiny screen and my middle-aged eyes, and the idea of watching videos on it I find positively laughable.
What I’d like is something the size and form factor of my old Newton 110/120/130 machines. I took all my notes on those in graduate school, and it was fantastic. When I got home I’d print the notes out on my laser printer via AppleTalk (Anyone remember that?), and then review them: Study done/retention increased.
Give me a Newton-sized iPhone and then I’ll consider applications for it, surfing on it, and perhaps even the rare video.
For me the app store is the definetly the success story after the iPhone’s itself. Some apps are for sure worse but most are very impressive. See twitterfon, iFoosball, Pingpong, Skype, smule, Sway …
But the most important thing for me is, it’s entertaining all the time and it’s just in my hands. I love beeing here at this time for this piece of technology and the community around it. I’m not an apple fanboy and I don’t like some of Apples strict business ideas, but in case of the iPhone Apple did it at a time where other ventors put the stuff on five and more devices to catch the money they can from customers.
That’s why the iPhone is a classic from 1. day on.
Just one thing – a real tiny keyboard – I would love it!
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