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iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

develop-online.net

11–20 of 64 posts

Re: iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

#11
I think the problem goes far deeper than this. Apple has never had good search and discovery technology across it's products. Searching using iTunes on the desktop isn't any better. I won't get into the details. I'm sure a lot of you share my sentiments.

In many ways it is a parallel with Maps. Google has great search and great maps. Apple has bad search and now less-than-stellar maps. Trend?

Re: iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

#12
Its most likely not a disaster for Apple in that Im sure it was purposeful. Id assume their thinking is that for every "unproven" app that gets surfaced to the user could be lost revenue in place of giving more focus to an established app with a higher likelihood of a buy. To me it seems like one of those short sighted how do we grow our revenue in the app store by 12% business maneuvers.

The long term and bigger picture impact of those decisions on Apple I guess we will have to wait and see.

Re: iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

#14

Its most likely not a disaster for Apple in that Im sure it was purposeful. Id assume their thinking is that for every "unproven" app that gets surfaced to the user could be lost revenue in place of giving more focus to an established app with a higher likelihood of a buy. To me it seems like one of those short sighted how do we grow our revenue in the app store by 12% business maneuvers. The long term and bigger pic…

iOS devices are successful because of the developers, just ask Microsoft. Now they are killing the hen that laid golden apps. I am surprised how quickly Apple lost its way after Steve.

Re: iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

#15

It certainly feels like a disaster for users. I hate the single card view. It drives me crazy.

Weird. I prefer it. I much prefer to see a screenshot of the app than just an icon and title.

I don't mind the single card bit, its the search that is horrid. Example from today, I searched for "Jasmine", which is a youtube client app. It is #5 on the list, the first "match" is "My Princess Diary". However they are ranking apps is making things as painful for users as developers. Almost doubly so for the latter.

Re: iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

#16
The iOS 6 app store is less dynamic than other prior app store iterations. Example being I have an app listed as number 19 under a particular search. I've been checking that search every day and we are always 19 on the list. No change whatsoever even though our downloads have fluctuated in that time. Why are we 19? No idea. Before it meant we had less downloads than the people before us. Now I have no idea. It reminds me a lot of the Chomp search results. Not really sure what Chomp said to convince Apple that their search algorithm was better than what Apple was using.

Re: iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

#17

Its most likely not a disaster for Apple in that Im sure it was purposeful. Id assume their thinking is that for every "unproven" app that gets surfaced to the user could be lost revenue in place of giving more focus to an established app with a higher likelihood of a buy. To me it seems like one of those short sighted how do we grow our revenue in the app store by 12% business maneuvers. The long term and bigger pic…

iOS devices are successful because of the developers, just ask Microsoft. Now they are killing the hen that laid golden apps. I am surprised how quickly Apple lost its way after Steve.

[deleted]

Re: iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

#18
post #7

One of my main problems with the store is that the single card view doesn't even work well. Perhaps it's because I'm on an iPhone 4, but the loading time that comes with this new configuration absolutely destroys the experience for anyone wanting to find anything. Perhaps when we all have gigabit connections on our phones this card view will reign supreme, but until that point it's a completely short sighted attempt…

I miss him too. I bet he would have been pretty pissed at this design.

so everybody now knows exactly what Steve Jobs would or would not have done ( i.e. whatever you don't agree with ) ?

Re: iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

#19
How has anyone ever sold a product before? You market it.

The App Store isn't the sole place you should be marketing your app. If you have ever counted on just releasing your app into the store and have it somehow gain traction with no other effort, you've always been doomed to failure.

The App Store should be treated like a supermarket, after a fashion. You may get your product on the shelf, but simply relying on people walking by and seeing it is a terrible way to get people to try it. It always takes outside marketing to get people to look for your product or learn about it.

So you already have put a lot of work into making your application. Now go do some more legwork and get people talking about it.

Re: iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

#20
For all this talk about App Store discovery, why hasn't anyone set up an alternative means of discovery? After all, all you need is a link to the item on itunes. It should be theoretically easy to set up a mobile webpage with a list of indie apps, and with improved searching it'd be very easy to bootstrap such a site with at most a week's worth of effort.
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