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iOS 6 Breaks the App Store

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Re: iOS 6 Breaks the App Store

#91

Post by grey-area »

While I disagree with the linkbait hyperbole of the article title, Apple have taken a misstep here. What they should have done is allowed the user to flip between a list view of results or a card view when introducing this new view type, rather than just replacing the list.

Re searches I'd expect a simple search for picasa to return apps with picasa in the name before other apps, no matter how popular they are.

The frustration I have with the App Store is that it doesn't have enough control over subcategories and filtering so it's hard to filter results or browse effectively as the categories offered are so broad.

Re: iOS 6 Breaks the App Store

#92

Post by apphero »

bpatrianakos wrote: post #18

Nothing is broken and no one is "doing it wrong". It's not broken, it's just inconvenient for you . This sucks for app developers with bad app store SEO and lackluster icons, app designs, and screenshots of said designs. Many apps at the bottom of the stack will be neglected. This is a good thing. I'm about to release an app into the app store for the first time and I'm happy about it. This will raise the bar for dev…

I'm sorry Bill but I am going to have to respectfully disagree. The App Store is broken and Apple is doing it wrong. The point of search is to find new interesting apps. With over 700,000 apps on the App Store, search is the only way most indie devs get sales. And with the new changes, even the best devs cannot rank high on search.

We do not think we are the center of the universe. However, we are an important park of Apple's ecosystem. We helped build the App Store to where it is today.

As of right now, it feels like Apple is kicking us to the curb, Just read some of the app dev forums around the web. A lot of us lost money over Apple's decisions last summer. And we will continue to lose money.

Please come back and comment when you have released you first app. If spending thousands of marketing dollars on my already popular apps did not decelerate my sales freefall, then most new apps on the App Store have very little chance at succeeding.

A new paid app will never rank high on search. That's the state of things right now. For some reason, Apple's new search algorithm prefers free apps over paid apps and older apps over newer apps.

Re: iOS 6 Breaks the App Store

#93

Post by janardanyri »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #81
stickfigure wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just imagine for a moment that Google only offered one result per page. Do you really think this is going to improve the user experience? How often do you click "I'm Feeling Lucky"? The ability of Apple apologists to rationalize bad behavior is astounding .

Absolutely crazy I agree. The app store is for two people, app makers, and people who want to download apps. For app makers it is unquestionably worse, not even remotely close, an infinitely worse experience. The OP seems to imply that this shouldnt matter, because the experience for the end user is better, and then goes on to give no real reasons and even says that "it will force developers to focus on seo" as if th…

Hmm, I don't think the app store is "for" app makers at all. It's for end users exclusively - the paying customers. That app makers are required to keep a fully stocked app store is an implementation detail.

Re: iOS 6 Breaks the App Store

#94

Post by ryguytilidie »

janardanyri wrote: post #93
ryguytilidie wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely crazy I agree. The app store is for two people, app makers, and people who want to download apps. For app makers it is unquestionably worse, not even remotely close, an infinitely worse experience. The OP seems to imply that this shouldnt matter, because the experience for the end user is better, and then goes on to give no real reasons and even says that "it will force developers to focus on seo" as if th…

Hmm, I don't think the app store is "for" app makers at all. It's for end users exclusively - the paying customers. That app makers are required to keep a fully stocked app store is an implementation detail.

You kind of just said "no you're wrong, its not for developers" and didn't really follow that up with any sort of supporting evidence, which is usually how these kind of exchanges go. If Apple designed the app store for the end user and 0% for the app makers than we would simply see the most popular app at the top and everything would be free. But we don't have it that way, why? Because if we had it that way developers wouldnt develop apps, which is why features in the app store, like actually having people pay, are built for developers.

Re: iOS 6 Breaks the App Store

#95

Post by ajanuary »

bad_user wrote: post #86
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The example here was searching on the search term "picasa" and the search algorithm returning two applications that have that search term in their name ahead of applications that do not. It's certainly possible that Web Albums is better than Picasa HD Lite, but c'mon. If you do a search for "photoshop" you will find competitors to Photoshop Express with higher ratings, but Photoshop Express still shows up ahead of th…

If Google Search worked like this, I wouldn't be using it. The title is definitely important, however on Google the title is less important than everything else combined, and that's how it should be. Also, from your examples all the apps you mention are above 4 stars and have massive downloads. TweetDeck may be better than Twitter, but the official Twitter is not too shabby either. Also I'm sick and tired about apps…

Google have a heck of a lot more data to go on. It's not just the title of Facebook.com, it's the millions of links to it that contain the word 'Facebook'.

The app store doesn't have that data, so has to rely more on titles to try and how you a specific app if you do a specific search. If I search for 'Facebook' there's a high chance I want the official app, so it should come up high no matter if it's not the highest ranked.

Of course, it's plainly open for abuse. I wonder if they do, or could, take usage stats into account as well as ratings. If everyone is using the official Facebook app despite the fact it's crap, the user is probably trying to find it when they search for it, but it no one is using My Crappy Picassa App then it shouldn't be ranked very highly, even on a search for 'Picassa'. But then you have the bootstrapping problem of new apps being hard to find, even with exact searches. Perhaps some sort of inverse relationship between age and active users would work.

Re: iOS 6 Breaks the App Store

#96

Post by ajanuary »

Too wrote: post #73
tzs wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a buyer, I don't see how it is great for me. When I search on the App Store there are usually several hits in the results that are not at all interesting to me, and ahead of the hits that better match what I'm looking for. I want to see several results at once so I can pick which ones I want to look into more deeply. If I have to step through them one at a time with a noticeable delay at each step, I'm not going t…

So you only judge a book by it's cover? Or an app by its icon and name?

I judge them by screenshots and then icons. It's certainly easier than downloading them all. Ratings on the app store don't tend to be very accurate for my tastes.

Re: iOS 6 Breaks the App Store

#97

Post by chmars »

'With this new layout, people will be less likely to try out apps that aren’t at the top of the results.'

I wish I could try out apps in the App Store, that feature has been missing from day one.

I agree, however, that it remains very difficult to find apps directly in the App Store. I mostly go to the App Store via recommendations from friends and on websites since looking myself for an app, recently for example for a clock and timer app for my iPad (no longer necessary with iOS 6), has almost never been a success.

I know most apps are not expensive but neither online nor offline do I like to spend money for things I don't use, i.e., I need a possibility to check an app or any other product in advance. Reviews could replace such a check but there are not very helpful in the App Store either. In my case – living in a relatively small country – most apps, even popular ones, have no reviews at all …

Re: iOS 6 Breaks the App Store

#98

Post by epo »

sumukh1 wrote: post #5

This is awesome news (though it's been known for a while) for the top publishers who have: large download numbers, good AppStore SEO, and good screenshots. While I think that this is bad on whole for developers/discovery as we knew it, it might just help users. Most of the time, users are either window shopping or looking for a very specific product. Window Shoppers: "I want a photo editing app", chances are you are…

Ignoring the whiners, fanroids and Apple haters. Apple did this for a reason: to maximise revenue. If this encourages people to buy more stuff more quickly it stays otherwise it will change to something else. The "it's all different" whining is just like people complaining when Google tweaks their results presentation and suddenly a carefully SEO'd site is no longer on page 1.

Personally I never use the iPhone interface to the appstore, I hated the way it used to be, and I hate this.

However, Apple have announced an iTunes revamp for next month, I suspect this is a preview of what that will be like.

Re: iOS 6 Breaks the App Store

#99

Post by mayanksinghal »

ajanuary wrote: post #95
bad_user wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Google Search worked like this, I wouldn't be using it. The title is definitely important, however on Google the title is less important than everything else combined, and that's how it should be. Also, from your examples all the apps you mention are above 4 stars and have massive downloads. TweetDeck may be better than Twitter, but the official Twitter is not too shabby either. Also I'm sick and tired about apps…

Google have a heck of a lot more data to go on. It's not just the title of Facebook.com, it's the millions of links to it that contain the word 'Facebook'. The app store doesn't have that data, so has to rely more on titles to try and how you a specific app if you do a specific search. If I search for 'Facebook' there's a high chance I want the official app, so it should come up high no matter if it's not the highest…

Well actually, they should have more data. The description and reviews should be available to them without an issue. More importantly, they could mine backlinks for more context.

Re: iOS 6 Breaks the App Store

#100

Post by sukuriant »

Okay. I wanted to see the App Store in action; and ... I'm confused. Is there any sort of YouTube video that has the more recent app store? I was watching this review http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO-vcmBjN50 which is allegedly about iOS 6; and ... that App Store doesn't look bad at all. I mean, I prefer up-and-down scrolling over horizontal scrolling when I'm looking for things, but that's nowhere near what was shown in the article. ... Help?

Edit: found one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=M...!

It looks like it works better on the iPad

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