App Store massively dissapointing...

Join the club. There's at least three threads going on about the i(insert party) apps. I'm starting to think that the developer is complaining to draw notice...

And it's a donkey, not a horse.

Give it time..

I have to admit I had high hopes for the app store — but my gut feeling before launch was always that it was going to be disappointing…
And so it has turned out to be.
How many flashlights and tip-calculators are there?

Perhaps the quality will improve, but right now it seems as if Apple is content to just list any old cr*p as long as they can claim:
"Over 10 bazillion apps!" (No matter that 99% are a waste of space.)

Hoping it will improve…

I must have been lucky to get some apps I like before they sold out. Phew!

I wish Apple had some sort of standard of quality for the apps. There's a lot of very poor ones.

The good thing about the S60 stores and sites is that because it's been around for a while most of the absolute rubbish has died out and one is left with good software to select from. I suspect Apple's store will be the same.

calculus said:

I must have been lucky to get some apps I like before they sold out. Phew!

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apps can sell out??
And, join the boat, most apps are crap....

A lot of people should have held off on the iPhone for a few months because this is what happens every time. When Windows Mobile hit the street all you could find was garbage. Garbage still makes up 95% of it but now there are real GPS apps, not just that waste of space google junk, real video apps like Slingplayer and TCPMP, real browsers that rival Safari on the iPhone, etc. Same thing will happen with the iPhone and you can either learn how to code for it and fill the holes yourself or you can wait and hope someone does it for you. I guarantee this much: When the good stuff starts showing up, it's not going to be free. Hope you have real jobs.

markgamber said:

I guarantee this much: When the good stuff starts showing up, it's not going to be free. Hope you have real jobs.

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Paying for quality apps is not the problem…
I just wish there was something worth paying for.

DeaconGraves said:

Join the club. There's at least three threads going on about the i(insert party) apps. I'm starting to think that the developer is complaining to draw notice...

And it's a donkey, not a horse.

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Aloha DeaconGraves,

Actually, the Democrats' mascot is a donkey, but this was changed a bit for Andrew Jackson, who was labeled a jackass during the presidential campaign of 1828. The donkey was never officially adopted by the party, however it has been widely used since at least then, like the elephant for the Republican Party.

HawaiiMacAddict

I think the app store is great. To me it doesn't matter how much junk is there as long as there are several good apps that I can use. An easy way to sort the junk from the good ones is to look at the most popular ones.

So far some of the apps I find useful are:

Remote - free, controls iTunes from anywhere in your house
Pandora - free, I've found several new songs I like using it
Holdem - several dollars, but great game, definitely worth it
Tetris - fun
myLite - free, might be useful
Monkey Ball - several dollars, was fun to play, I'm at the 3rd set of worlds
WeDict - free, nice to have a dictionary on hand anywhere
Facebook -free, easy to use

I've also seen a number of specialized apps that have gotten good reviews from their target audience - e.g. Epocrates for doctors, a flight planning tool, several apps for medical students, apps for musicians, etc.

It just needs time.

There are so many junk apps on there that are free on other platforms.
There are probably 500 different types of calculators that are free for WM, where, for iPhone you have to pay for something ridiculous like a tip calculator.

Some of the best stuff out there for WM was developed by enthusiasts that just want to solve a problem and share. ex- WeatherPannel and the flash video player.

I agree there's a lot of useless apps, but that's how it is on any platform.

I'm not disappointed at all. I got/bought all the apps I need and I'm excited about potential apps that may come (turn by turn navigation, Worms, Sirius).

I hope Apple utilizes user ratings as a way to determine which apps / companies should have priority in being evaluated for approval.

Another way of looking at this is what apps would you like to see. I think a lot of us thought that there would be a lot of great apps but didn't really think what we would need.

nippyjun said:

Another way of looking at this is what apps would you like to see. I think a lot of us thought that there would be a lot of great apps but didn't really think what we would need.

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There's a backlog of new applications and updates to existing apps that are unavailable still.

Also keep in mind that there were only a limited number of developers accepted into the program in the beginning.

janey said:

Also keep in mind that there were only a limited number of developers accepted into the program in the beginning.

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Well judging by the average standard the acceptance criteria was obviously not very strict…

arkitect said:

Well judging by the average standard the acceptance criteria was obviously not very strict…

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it was pretty random. if there was an acceptance criteria it must have been some monkey pointing at names.

moot point, there's still some people waiting to get into the program I think. the bigger wait is getting your app into the app store, and getting your existing app updated. i'm waiting on a whole ton of updates right now, sigh.

janey said:

it was pretty random. if there was an acceptance criteria it must have been some monkey pointing at names.

moot point, there's still some people waiting to get into the program I think. the bigger wait is getting your app into the app store, and getting your existing app updated. i'm waiting on a whole ton of updates right now, sigh.

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Don't think that it was your intent but the monkey comment was hilarious

AJsAWiz said:

Don't think that it was your intent but the monkey comment was hilarious

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Well, it's true. You'd imagine Apple would screen the first set to make sure they're established Mac developers or something....well...
http://twitter.com/RogueAmoeba/statuses/791262603

1. People were angry that Apple didn't allow 3rd party apps.
2. Apple allows 3rd party apps.
3. Some apps aren't good, so people are angry and want Apple to control it.

The circle of rants is complete.

Agreed that there are a lot of crap applications. However, there are some real gems as well. I don't mind it too much, and as always, you don't have to buy the crap.

I think someone doesn't know how to browse very well. Yes, there is a load of crapware in the store. But there are also things like Facebook, AIM, etc. that are very useful. This is also a store that has been open not even two weeks and developers have had no more than 5 months to do anything.

Be patient. The crap will disappear, new stuff will appear.

What they need is a trial period for some of these payed for apps. It just doesn't make sense. I would probably have bought a few apps if I were able to try them out first. But because of this fact, I do not spend my money on an app that I might not like or not what I was looking for.

smfinlay said:

What they need is a trial period for some of these payed for apps. It just doesn't make sense. I would probably have bought a few apps if I were able to try them out first. But because of this fact, I do not spend my money on an app that I might not like or not what I was looking for.

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From my perspective I don't really care about trial periods, but I respect the opinion of those who would like them. I think the best compromise, and perhaps the intended method of dealing with this, is the ability to review apps. Here is where I think Apple has failed miserably.

They need to crackdown and enforce reviews. Only people that have actually purchased/downloaded/used the application should be able to leave a review. I can't imagine it'd be that difficult for them to filter this, after all you use your username when downloading an app and leaving a review!