They really need to come up with a better way to sort through the apps on the app store. It's so overwhelming that I find it unusable. Surely Apple can find a better way.
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App Store's Emphasis on Chart Positioning Squeezing Out Developers and Media Publications
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No downloads is not really a fair way to do that, nor is really pulling the apps. But apps that never get updated or aren't updated for new devices shouldn't get the rankings they do, apps that are updated should have more priority. Also the search needs to be completely overhauled. Too often you see apps that are not relevant to the search term and push down apps that are relevant.
The App Store is just terrible. A Google search reveals best apps. I think showing best apps regardless of download figures would be more apple like. I don't care about some candy crush betting/gambling style games. The store is overrun with companies large and small gaming the whole system.
So many people complaining about companies trying to make money and stay afloat. You love Mac rumors right? Then shut the **** up and deal with advertising, and articles like this. Self promotion is perfectly fine.
Yes, the App Store catalog needs a major overhaul to much better enable searching & finding anything other than front-page apps.
At the same time, it's absolutely vital to recognize that advertising an app really isn't Apple's problem - it's the app developer who needs to get word out to the intended audience, rather than expect a single host to find that audience for each of 1,500,000 apps. Apple's primary interest is in maximizing hardware sales, not necessarily app sales total or per developer. Remember, the App Store has made a total of 30% of somewhere around $10B ... which is, for Apple, a fairly paltry take relative to their total revenue.
Get out there and advertise. Your [potential] customers are not Apple's problem.
At the same time, it's absolutely vital to recognize that advertising an app really isn't Apple's problem - it's the app developer who needs to get word out to the intended audience, rather than expect a single host to find that audience for each of 1,500,000 apps. Apple's primary interest is in maximizing hardware sales, not necessarily app sales total or per developer. Remember, the App Store has made a total of 30% of somewhere around $10B ... which is, for Apple, a fairly paltry take relative to their total revenue.
Get out there and advertise. Your [potential] customers are not Apple's problem.
Remember when free apps couldn't have paid in-app purchases? Oh those were the times.
According to this, Grindr should be pulled. And that's unacceptable. How am I supposed to search for the love of my life then?!
"iOS gaming has since been pushed to two extremes: The giant, multi-million dollar studios of the world, and supremely tiny indie developers hoping to catch lightning in a bottle with a surprise viral hit they built in their spare time. The mobile gaming megacorps are operating on a financial level that's hard to even fully comprehend, quite literally advertising during the Super Bowl, while the one-man indie studios typically can't even afford an artist to help them with a better app icon."
like a metaphor for life, not just the app store.
but really, if they can't make their icon look ok, there's not much hope for the app.
like a metaphor for life, not just the app store.
but really, if they can't make their icon look ok, there's not much hope for the app.
I believe that means ads placed though in-app advertising networks are more effective than Touch Arcade ads, so that's where publishers are spending their money. But, yeah, that's really vague. If I've interpreted that correctly, I also don't see any reason to think that's true.
BTW, this is an embarrassing story for MR.
First, it doesn't really make any sense. Chart positioning isn't the source of the squeeze -- the fact that the app store is bad at discovery is a *good* thing for Touch Arcade. The squeeze is that there is an absolutely stunning amount of competition. Sure there are several hundred million iOS users, but there are also 1.4 million apps. It just isn't going to happen for the vast majority of them and the sheer numbers make it dicey for anyone. Same thing for the attendant ad-placement platforms including Touch Arcade.
Second, if you want to ask for money for Touch Arcade, just ask. Wrapping a vacuous story around it is just annoying. Including an attention-grabbing dig at Apple (an incoherent one at that) is obnoxious.
I agree with the article in that it is very difficult for independent developers or new apps to get the exposure or traction they need to get users to download their apps. The majority of users looking for apps in the App Store just browse the Top Paid, Free and Grossing apps section, although the Featured page does help to alleviate this problem slightly. The app store is flooded with too many apps and its too difficult for the smaller app developers to get exposure. There needs to be something like a prominent 'new & noteworthy apps' type-section in the App Store to give smaller developers a chance of exposure.
I realised this from a previous post but App developers need to consider advertising (print and online/in-app) and encouraging reviews of their apps: the App store front page is not paid advertisement. To expect serendipity to occur and your app to magically appear on the front page is naïve - even the indie bands don't complain about the iTunes store if they don't advertise their songs. 
Maybe not that much smaller. A "developer" I consulted for long ago has a boring game in the store that hasn't been updated since iOS 4 and that crashes occasionally, but he won't pull it because it still gets a few paid downloads per month. A few old apps like that still covers his developer program plus buys a few beers per annum, but not enough revenue to pay for updating the apps.
Grindr doesn't match what I said, which are simple suggestions at the very least. Some poor data analyst would have to spend some find reviewing the stats first.
The category of apps that occasionally crash and generate logs includes some from major partners/brands, ones on the top charts, and sometimes Apple's own apps.
All that policy would do is cause too many developers to flood the store with frequent meaningless or trivial updates, thus clogging up the app review process.
Too many developers are interested in gaming every App Store policy and review site to the max, instead of trying to create innovative (risky?) new games and apps. To me, this says the review sites are catering to the very developers who are trying to game them, rather than digging deep down in the list for developers who spend more effort on creativity and coding than marketing.
I've never made an app, but I've been thinking about it. But can you not generate buzz on the web and with social media to drive traffic to your app via hard links?
I would have never thought to rely on Apple for exposure. I would come up with a catchy name, build a website for it and have a product launch on several social media sites... Is that not viable?
Maybe I'm off, but it sounds like developers are kind of lazy in terms of promoting their product and are expecting Apple to just put them at the top of the charts?
Maybe Apple needs to add some more charts to the App Store like "Indie" "New Releases This Week".
I would have never thought to rely on Apple for exposure. I would come up with a catchy name, build a website for it and have a product launch on several social media sites... Is that not viable?
Maybe I'm off, but it sounds like developers are kind of lazy in terms of promoting their product and are expecting Apple to just put them at the top of the charts?
Maybe Apple needs to add some more charts to the App Store like "Indie" "New Releases This Week".
Yes. We need subcategories of subcategories of subcategories, as Tallest Skil of AppleInsider would say.
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Similar articles appeared seventy years ago with the emergence of the "Top 40" charts and radio station formats. Many in the music business complained that it was ruining the diversity of music.
At that time, the cost of producing records with the then new vinyl press process replaced the more expensive rigid plastic forming method of record manufacturing.
We are seeing nothing but a shakedown flushing out the dilitants in a free market. Those "poor" developers did not double down, quit the day job, risk the mortgage and are bitching their "money for nothing" is going away.
For every hour you put in app development, four to ten hours should be in finance and marketing to deliver the product.
Fortune favors the brave.
At that time, the cost of producing records with the then new vinyl press process replaced the more expensive rigid plastic forming method of record manufacturing.
We are seeing nothing but a shakedown flushing out the dilitants in a free market. Those "poor" developers did not double down, quit the day job, risk the mortgage and are bitching their "money for nothing" is going away.
For every hour you put in app development, four to ten hours should be in finance and marketing to deliver the product.
Fortune favors the brave.
Personally I never use the chart section, but the new and noteworty and staff picks (I think this is what they are called, too lazy to actually check now). If I'm looking for something specific, the search option is an obvious choice, sometimes that also includes a web search.