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iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

develop-online.net

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Re: iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

#51

Post by alanctgardner2 »

sandstrom wrote: post #26

So discovery is hampered, more focus on the screenshot and title is limited to 7 characters. Sounds like Apple want users to find fewer, but higher quality apps: - browsing fewer apps, with users looking closer at each of them; - screenshot of the app, you buy the app, not the icon and title; - shorter title, less stuffed with keywords [good apps often have short names: Skype, Spotify, Instagram, Twitter]. I think th…

> good apps often have short names: Skype, Spotify, Instagram, Twitter

I think you mean 'well-recognized brands have short names'. If you're trying to discover a new Twitter client, it might help for them to have their name, and 'Twitter', in the title. The goal with search isn't to deliver the user to exactly the app they already know they want, but to display apps they might want. Discovery is really hard given one screenshot and 7 characters.

Re: iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

#52

Post by gurkendoktor »

geuis wrote: post #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 pe…

If you have any data on this, can you please link to any? From an iOS user POV, I always buy apps by browsing through the App Store. Starting to learn Chinese? - Download all free Chinese dictionaries and see what sticks. etc...

It's exactly like buying music - I have lots of friends who buy iOS apps, but no two of us have the same taste in apps, so everybody ends up browsing for themselves.

Re: iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

#53

Post by rscale »

taligent wrote: post #13
king_magic wrote: post #2

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 prefer it as well. In the old system I opened each item and looked at the screenshot, then went back to the list, lather rinse, repeat.

In the new system I just swipe swipe buy.

Re: iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

#54

Post by dpcan »

kolinko wrote: post #38
walru wrote: 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 also use iPhone 4, but I'm glad the changes are here. First - it's been years since the "new releases" view benefitted the developers. Currently, with the amount of new apps for iPhone, the devs get quickly buried on that list, and the launch benefit is minimal. As for the single card view... It's not perfect, because you need to do more scrolling, but on the other hand - you no longer have to decide which app to p…

"In the past you'd have to tap every single one of them - nobody did that."

Sure they did. On their first search for a topic at least. And it wasn't painful. It was nice and quick.

The thing about search is, we go back and search for the same thing many times, usually to find apps related to our areas of interest, and Apple seems to have completely neglected this notion.

They seem to think that our search is ALWAYS to find something "new".

I would search for "platformers" and "platform games" about once every week or two. I KNEW the ones I had checked out previously. I wouldn't click them again, but it was 2 quick swipes to see what's new. Job done. This is now dead. When I search, I have to look at the same stuff, and have to flip slowly through each and every app I've already decided I don't want to download, again, and again, and again. And THIS is something I won't do. Hence, "discovery" is dead.

Now, from a smaller developer's perspective, as I have apps in this store...

Discovery was critical. Search and the "New" section were important to me.

The release-date section under each category was CRITICAL to getting those first downloads.

On day 1, with nothing more than a tweet to a handful of followers, my app would see a significant number of first-time downloads from being in this section. It got the ball rolling.

Here's my idea/wish:

App stores should have an "Introductions" category, and when we submit our apps, we should be able to write a description of our app just for this purpose. We get 1 day in the "Introductions" category, and after that, we're gone. People can feel free to go to this category at any time to see everything that has been released, so they get to see new stuff, and developers get an opportunity to get some initial users.

Re: iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

#55

Post by dpcan »

geuis wrote: post #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 pe…

"The App Store should be treated like a supermarket, after a fashion."

OK, but what if you wanted to find a new healthy cereal, but they first made you slowly look through each and every box of cereal that has ever existed until you find the new one you want to try?

The App Store USED to be like a Super Market, where all the cereal was facing out, and you could just glance at everything and pick what you wanted to learn more about.

Now it is not.

Re: iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

#56

Post by adjwilli »

devcpp wrote: post #37
vvhn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think we are all just surprised there are so many design decisions we can't agree with, precisely with the first major update for iOS comes since Jobs died. Up until the iPhone 4, I don't think I've had any criticism towards the design of Apple products... since Jobs came back to Apple. I don't think these are coincidences. Jobs may have been more than a good businessman. He was a source of inspiration.

Before iOS 5 - the first to overdo skuemorphism - the last major design hoopla was when Apple couldn't decide on a single on windowing theme. It was brush-metal, then just white, then just gray, then all of them at the same time in different windows, sometimes with candy buttons, sometimes now. It was probably due more to Jobs' indecisiveness.

Re: iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

#57

Post by adjwilli »

gurkendoktor wrote: post #52
geuis wrote: post #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 pe…

If you have any data on this, can you please link to any? From an iOS user POV, I always buy apps by browsing through the App Store. Starting to learn Chinese? - Download all free Chinese dictionaries and see what sticks. etc... It's exactly like buying music - I have lots of friends who buy iOS apps, but no two of us have the same taste in apps, so everybody ends up browsing for themselves.

This is a great insight into how people actually search and use apps. It makes the case for free-to-download with in-app purchases. People won't think twice about downloading a free app to try it out, and if they like it, they'll spend the extra couple bucks or so to unlock its full feature set. My guess is that this is more profitable to everyone than Android's "erase in whatever time" to get a refund scheme.

Re: iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

#58

Post by adjwilli »

program wrote: post #31

The 3 and 1/4 icons displayed on a single row is a bad idea. Not because it's bad UX but because it seems that the application doesn't cache any hidden icons. Every time I scroll the list that's a (very) small loading time that block the natural scroll. Anyway I like the "See all" view (but I haven't used it from day one, I don't know way but it didn't catch my attention). Finally Apple has implemented infinite scrol…

Yes, the whole App Store seems laggy now. When you're on the 25th card, it takes a while for card #26 to show its edge, leading the user to think there aren't more apps and if there are no one wants to download them anyways.

Re: iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

#59

Post by tayl0r »

tayl0r wrote: post #47

My sales seems to have dropped but I really think we need more time to know for sure. With only 3 days of sales data since the iOS 6 launch (according to iTunes Connect Mobile) how are any of you able to say for sure one way or the other that the discovery is actually worse? Here are my sales: https://twitter.com/tsteil/status/251273647262691328/photo/1... The past 3 days I've only had 1 sale per day. The last time I…

Actually it looks like the web view of iTunes Connect sales reports has data up to yesterday and my sales went back up. So, I'm not really seeing any change and I'm as "indie" as they come.

Re: iOS 6 App Store is a disaster for developers

#60

Post by tayl0r »

No one in this thread is offering up any data showing that their sales have gone down since the iOS 6 App Store has rolled out.

My app sales seem to be unchanged. In fact, my free version downloads have actually gone up since the iOS 6 release.

Another person is reporting their downloads also unchanged, "My App Store experiment is still ticking along with no big reduction in its modest number of daily downloads".

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