App Store's Emphasis on Chart Positioning Squeezing Out Developers and Media Publications

[darkknight14]

Oh, and slightly off topic (sort of), i think Apple need to do something about some of those in-app purchase games as some of them are simply adware bombs. You get 10 seconds of actual game and spend the next 30 seconds closing adverts. I really don't think that is what Steve had in mind when he agreed to an app store, and neither did we!!

I agree, I am not a fan of this freemium model. I am more than happy to pay £1 - 5 for good gaming apps. I hope this dies out..

 

[Boris-VTR]

Excellent observation. I actually never thought of that but it makes sense that big studios would press apple for such a change to reduce competition. Strangely however the new apps sections were removed for non-game apps first, and only in the US first. Then that spread globally and then recently they did that for games.

Again it makes no sense. How does it help consumers? It hurts consumers by reducing their choice (in effect, the new apps are still there but they are very hard to come across). But of course it helps big game studios and big developers in general, so your suggestion makes sense. Cronyism at its best.

The question is what if anything can be done about it. The article included a passage suggesting developers need to change. Need to change how? Get a million dollar loan to pay for advertising? Obviously developers can't change. You can make a nice icon etc. but what difference does it make if nobody ever sees it.

The article also mentioned flappy bird, but I will point out that the new games section was still up when flappy bird came out. You have to wonder if flappy bird came out as a new game today would it have gotten that kind of massive downloads.

Situation right now is not all that good for indie developers. Heck, even Macrumors won't cover any good indie game if it doesn't have some sort of momentum already.

And no mather how much Facebook pages, linkedin, twitter and web page promotion you do, it probably still would not make you on first page, let alone give you a return of investment.

Our only hope basically is if app store changes. Is there really need for angry bird to be 3 years on first page? Yes they sell.....but they also sell a lot because of this exposure. A lot of people buy stuff just because it is on top of the chart.

Apple also needs to fix app search on app store. You look for your app and 5 variations of angry bird is before you. Now how can some random people looking for some new games gonna find my game is lottery at best 🙂

 

[Amazing Iceman]

It's time for Apple to clean up old junk from the AppStore. Any app that hasn't been updated for a year or more should be removed. Also, apps that are identical but under different developer names should be removed.

 

[Benjamin Frost]

Apple doesn't seem to care. I think it should be setup like Amazon.com. If you search for something you have many options on how to order things (price high to low, price low to high, new and popular etc.). Apple also has very limited categories. You go to education and its dominated by stuff for 4 year olds. Aren't there any apps for college students? If there are they are buried in the morass. Also categories like reference and lifestyle have wildly different apps like religious ones and wallpaper apps. There should be subcategories to make it easier for people to find what they want, like reference->religion->Christian or whatever. Just like Amazon does. That would make it more likely for people to find apps that they want, to use apps, and be more satisfied with their devices.

You couldn't have put it better.

The lifestyle category, for instance, is particularly ridiculous. It covers so many completely unrelated categories as to be useless. There need to be far more categories, and we need to be able to filter them ruthlessly.

For example, if I'm looking for a restaurant that sells burgers, I type burgers into the search bar. What do I get? Endless games. The big problem with Apple's filters is that you don't really know what category an app might be in, unless it's a game. Most of the time, you don't want any games included in results, but if you restrict the filter to one category, you might not get the right one.

So I want to be able to type burgers and just get restaurant apps, but I don't believe that's possible at the moment.

 

[TrueBlou]

Situation right now is not all that good for indie developers. Heck, even Macrumors won't cover any good indie game if it doesn't have some sort of momentum already.

And no mather how much Facebook pages, linkedin, twitter and web page promotion you do, it probably still would not make you on first page, let alone give you a return of investment.

Our only hope basically is if app store changes. Is there really need for angry bird to be 3 years on first page? Yes they sell.....but they also sell a lot because of this exposure. A lot of people buy stuff just because it is on top of the chart.

Apple also needs to fix app search on app store. You look for your app and 5 variations of angry bird is before you. Now how can some random people looking for some new games gonna find my game is lottery at best 🙂

Well said. As an indie dev who's been at this for nearly 5 years I can tell you it's ridiculously difficult to get momentum for your apps.

As you say, websites will rarely acknowledge you unless you have a good following already.
And as much as people say they don't want freemium or any such type of app, these people are in the minority it would seem.

The biggest hit I've had was a game I put out a couple of years ago. When it was a paid app nobody took notice. Switched to free and all of a sudden hundreds of thousands of downloads, really good reviews and recommendations from tons of websites including Pocket Gamer, IGN and so on.

In my 5 years I've barely made any money. But I do what I do because I'm disabled and it keeps me occupied. But it's seriously difficult to make a living from it, I don't recommend it. Of course maybe that would be different if I wasn't self taught and made better apps. Maybe, but a fair few of the apps and games I've done have had really good feedback from users and the odd website.

Regarding the recent posts here and at TouchArcade about their situation becoming difficult to keep afloat and basically begging for money. As a developer I wouldn't support them, they've ignored me for 5 years, even when I've actually managed to make a good game, so why should I help them out. Not a snowflakes chance in hell.

As a gamer who reads their site daily, maybe I'd support them because it would be harder to find good games without them.

Ok, I've probably ranted on enough and gone way off topic, it's the medication, once I get started I just ramble on 😀

 

[ChrisCW11]

This is a problem for the entire entertainment industry. There is simply too much content because it is too easy to produce, too easy to produce garbage that is.

Apple has too many apps, Netflix has too much content, there is too much music and movies and TV shows and other content that floods these services, and then consumers are shown a grid or list of 10 - 20 items at a time and asked to make a choice.

Of course ranking by popularity is going to exclude the vast majority of content. There are those that suggest that 60% of all iOS Apps are never downloaded, even once. Tim Cook can rave about having 1.5 million apps available, but this is a serious issue if 800 k of them are simply never seen through their store.

Quantity is not better. Quality and popularity ranks and exposes good content, but having a platform of millions of crap apps is nothing to boast about. Same as having millions of 1 star movies or a bunch of old TV shows that were canceled decades ago. The problem is when good content is lost among a flood of garbage. How do you get your content ranked and charted when it can't be found easily?

This is not just an Apple issue, but if anybody needs to "fix" the system it's Apple because if I hear Tim Cook boast about how many apps Apple has when a large percentage of good content is just not accessible then there is no difference between an App store with a few dozen 5 star apps, vs a store with millions of crap apps hiding the gems.

 

[TrueBlou]

This is a problem for the entire entertainment industry. There is simply too much content because it is too easy to produce, too easy to produce garbage that is.

Apple has too many apps, Netflix has too much content, there is too much music and movies and TV shows and other content that floods these services, and then consumers are shown a grid or list of 10 - 20 items at a time and asked to make a choice.

Of course ranking by popularity is going to exclude the vast majority of content. There are those that suggest that 60% of all iOS Apps are never downloaded, even once. Tim Cook can rave about having 1.5 million apps available, but this is a serious issue if 800 k of them are simply never seen through their store.

Quantity is not better. Quality and popularity ranks and exposes good content, but having a platform of millions of crap apps is nothing to boast about. Same as having millions of 1 star movies or a bunch of old TV shows that were canceled decades ago. The problem is when good content is lost among a flood of garbage. How do you get your content ranked and charted when it can't be found easily?

This is not just an Apple issue, but if anybody needs to "fix" the system it's Apple because if I hear Tim Cook boast about how many apps Apple has when a large percentage of good content is just not accessible then there is no difference between an App store with a few dozen 5 star apps, vs a store with millions of crap apps hiding the gems.

Absolutely, 1.5 million apps might be a number to brag about. But take out the crap, the badly done clones and the ancient crud that doesn't work anymore and what's left.

It will be a significantly lower number but a better overall experience and a higher quality of available apps.

 

[seamer]

You're confusing. You suggested that an app be pulled if one of the three criteria is met (surely you didn't mean all three criteria):

1. No downloads in 12 months
2. No updates since iOS 6
3. Consistently low ratings in 24 months

Grindr falls under number 3. So it should be pulled hence my original reply to you.

😵😕

I'm merely pointing out multiple ways the store can be cleaned up to be relevant to users. I'm just a guy with ideas, I let engineers do the hard stuff like "making it work".

 

[sniffies]

I'm merely pointing out multiple ways the store can be cleaned up to be relevant to users. I'm just a guy with ideas, I let engineers do the hard stuff like "making it work".

And I merely pointed out that if Apple were to implement these criteria, Grindr would have to go.

 

[firewood]

How is zero or low downloads over an extended period of time unfair?

How is a great app that is invisible because it hasn't got any marketing traction whatsoever (yet!) ever going to have a chance at getting discovered?

I've seen iOS apps sit there for weeks and months with close to zero downloads, and then all of a sudden get a bunch of paid downloads, possibly once word-of-mouth from some unknown but well satisfied user with enough followers finally got out.

Also, one man's cr*p is another man's (or women's) gold. I've seen apps that at first got 1-star ratings from users who can't figure out what the h*ck the app was even for or how to use it properly (but were stupid enough to download the app anyway), then a few months later get 5-star ratings from niche expert users who find that that app exactly meets their specialist needs.

After years, the app is now 3-star rated, with a bunch of old 1-stars ratings balanced by a bunch of newer 5-stars ratings. If removed from the store, it would never have had a chance (nor its eventually very satisfied users).

 

[TrueBlou]

How is a great app that is invisible because it hasn't got any marketing traction whatsoever (yet!) ever going to have a chance at getting discovered?

I've seen iOS apps sit there for weeks and months with close to zero downloads, and then all of a sudden get a bunch of paid downloads, possibly once word-of-mouth from some unknown but well satisfied user with enough followers finally got out.

Also, one man's cr*p is another man's (or women's) gold. I've seen apps that at first got 1-star ratings from users who can't figure out what the h*ck the app was even for or how to use it properly (but were stupid enough to download the app anyway), then a few months later get 5-star ratings from niche expert users who find that that app exactly meets their specialist needs.

After years, the app is now 3-star rated, with a bunch of old 1-stars ratings balanced by a bunch of newer 5-stars ratings. If removed from the store, it would never have had a chance (nor its eventually very satisfied users).

This is so true, the longer I'm in this game the more I try to make my apps more intuitive. I've probably still a long way to go but that's another thing.

I've had support requests from people and negative feedback because of supposed problems. The answers to these have been in tutorials or popups at the first launch and in detailed written user guides.

But it seems a lot of people just don't pay attention. I suppose this forces us to try and be better at what we do and create interfaces that need little to no explanation.

Now if only I could mange that 😀

 

[9052042]

It's really sad when a developer has to use their name to find their own app. That developer is me 🙁

 

[TrueBlou]

It's really sad when a developer has to use their name to find their own app. That developer is me 🙁

Oh I've been there, many times as well.
It's annoying sometimes when seemingly irrelevant results are higher up in the list than what you are looking for.

If I type the exact name of a product in any store I expect that exact product to be pretty much at the top of the list.

 

[Boris-VTR]

Well said. As an indie dev who's been at this for nearly 5 years I can tell you it's ridiculously difficult to get momentum for your apps.

As you say, websites will rarely acknowledge you unless you have a good following already.
And as much as people say they don't want freemium or any such type of app, these people are in the minority it would seem.

The biggest hit I've had was a game I put out a couple of years ago. When it was a paid app nobody took notice. Switched to free and all of a sudden hundreds of thousands of downloads, really good reviews and recommendations from tons of websites including Pocket Gamer, IGN and so on.

In my 5 years I've barely made any money. But I do what I do because I'm disabled and it keeps me occupied. But it's seriously difficult to make a living from it, I don't recommend it. Of course maybe that would be different if I wasn't self taught and made better apps. Maybe, but a fair few of the apps and games I've done have had really good feedback from users and the odd website.

Regarding the recent posts here and at TouchArcade about their situation becoming difficult to keep afloat and basically begging for money. As a developer I wouldn't support them, they've ignored me for 5 years, even when I've actually managed to make a good game, so why should I help them out. Not a snowflakes chance in hell.

As a gamer who reads their site daily, maybe I'd support them because it would be harder to find good games without them.

Ok, I've probably ranted on enough and gone way off topic, it's the medication, once I get started I just ramble on 😀

Great post, i really liked it. It is always great to read first hand experience. I am indie developer and can afford it....because i have regular job (developing apps but for customers). Otherwise i would have to do something else lol.
But my hoby as indie dev also have big meaning behind it.....i try to build my name and portfolio. So my games and apps dont have adds or IAP. They are also free but i am thinking of setting price on one of them just to see the result 🙂

 

[Boris-VTR]

Oh I've been there, many times as well.
It's annoying sometimes when seemingly irrelevant results are higher up in the list than what you are looking for.

If I type the exact name of a product in any store I expect that exact product to be pretty much at the top of the list.

So true 🙂 I usually get 5 variatins of angry bird before me lol.

 

[Tech198]

This is why the App Store will always be "better choice" to developers will more likely go for over any other.

While they'll be a few odd, and ends on other stores. most will be from Apple.

 

[TrueBlou]

So true 🙂 I usually get 5 variatins of angry bird before me lol.

Don't forget about, angry crossy flapping bird pig crush game of skill sudoku bubble run pop candy mania frenzy saga rush.

Maybe I'm just a teeny bit irrational but those games with every word you can think of in the title should be the first thing to be wiped from the AppStore and never allowed to return. And thats the consumer in me speaking, just winds me up somehow.

 

[9052042]

Oh I've been there, many times as well.
It's annoying sometimes when seemingly irrelevant results are higher up in the list than what you are looking for.

If I type the exact name of a product in any store I expect that exact product to be pretty much at the top of the list.

That's true. How does searching for Ace Green put my app in 4/5th place? I think search results are biased towards number of downloads and reviews. Even if your search matches exactly An apps name, it still gives you biased results.

 

[TrueBlou]

That's true. How does searching for Ace Green put my app in 4/5th place? I think search results are biased towards number of downloads and reviews. Even if your search matches exactly An apps name, it still gives you biased results.

Exactly, i know that quite obviously Apple are a business and like any business they want to make money and so favour the big hitters.

I can't help but think that by essentially edging out the little guys they are not only turning their backs on what and who made the AppStore as popular as it is. But there are a heck of a lot of good apps from a lot of indie developers that could be good revenue streams for both the developers and Apple. They just never get the chance to be discovered these days.

Which is a shame as more support could help keep innovation alive and kicking. Before we get to the point where it's like home consoles and we get 15 years of EA churning out the same crap but with all new grass in this years version. But I digress.

As a consumer I get bored of seeing the same apps week after week, after week. In fact in some cases for well over a year. And they don't exactly make it easy to find other apps, I hate trawling through the AppStore, it's such a chore trying to find something new and different at times.

Sometimes I look at the AppStore and get the impression that its stagnating, which of course couldn't be further from the truth, it's just that for the 59th month running Apple are trying to shove candy bloody crush or yet another boring Angry Birds spin off and their ilk down our throats yet again.

The thing is, these apps and games from the big guys really don't need Apples help to sell on the store. People will find them just as easily, after all they have the marketing budgets to make sure that happens.

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying there shouldn't be front page support for the big names, far from it. There are after all some great apps and it's probably what the general public want to see, because they know it. But more could be done to better support smaller developers and certainly a lot could be done to make app discovery a lot better for consumers.

Good god I don't half go off on one when I get started 😉

 

[1458279]

Apple isn't likely to change the app store for devs because devs need Apple more than Apple needs most of the devs. Although devs do pay to be on the app store, I doubt it adds up to much to Apple.

If anything, Apple should be concerned about how the users feel. The facts are that 64% of the users download ZERO apps in a month, go out to 74% and you get 1~2 apps per month.

Most users use a very small number of apps and if you aren't one of those, you don't have much meaning to anyone but yourself.

This is just like the web itself, how many web sites are there? How many hit the radar? As a percentage of all sites, it's what < 5% ?

It'll end up like real life, 1% of the people own 50% of the wealth, but just like the web, anyone that wants to maintain a web page, gets to keep it alive.

Devs created the race to the bottom, we could have stopped at any time and made the lowest price $.99, but we didn't. Mobile ads have lost much of their value, from too much spam, no rules for how many ads to ad blockers.

If a customer can get a good quality app for free, why would they look at a mid-range app? What customer need this many apps? How far do you go down a google search looking for something? 3 maybe 4 pages? More than a million apps is a joke, it was an advertising stunt years ago, now it's a problem for the "look at me, I'm going to be a rich app developer" crowd in a long, long line that the customer doesn't care about.

Sorry if this is harsh, but it's the truth. Remember the gold rush days, now look at the ghost towns they left behind when the gold ran dry.

Yet another bubble, just like DotCom or Housing.

 

[TrueBlou]

Apple isn't likely to change the app store for devs because devs need Apple more than Apple needs most of the devs. Although devs do pay to be on the app store, I doubt it adds up to much to Apple.

If anything, Apple should be concerned about how the users feel. The facts are that 64% of the users download ZERO apps in a month, go out to 74% and you get 1~2 apps per month.

Most users use a very small number of apps and if you aren't one of those, you don't have much meaning to anyone but yourself.

This is just like the web itself, how many web sites are there? How many hit the radar? As a percentage of all sites, it's what < 5% ?

It'll end up like real life, 1% of the people own 50% of the wealth, but just like the web, anyone that wants to maintain a web page, gets to keep it alive.

Devs created the race to the bottom, we could have stopped at any time and made the lowest price $.99, but we didn't. Mobile ads have lost much of their value, from too much spam, no rules for how many ads to ad blockers.

If a customer can get a good quality app for free, why would they look at a mid-range app? What customer need this many apps? How far do you go down a google search looking for something? 3 maybe 4 pages? More than a million apps is a joke, it was an advertising stunt years ago, now it's a problem for the "look at me, I'm going to be a rich app developer" crowd in a long, long line that the customer doesn't care about.

Sorry if this is harsh, but it's the truth. Remember the gold rush days, now look at the ghost towns they left behind when the gold ran dry.

Yet another bubble, just like DotCom or Housing.

I agree, free was the worst thing to happen on the AppStore from a developers standpoint.

While the fees we pay to be on the AppStore probably only add up to a few dozen million a year for Apple. Don't forget they also take a 30% cut from every penny we make. Apparently Apple have netted over 5 and a half billion from their cut of sales. Not bad for just for providing, an admittedly huge, storefront.

 

[9052042]

Exactly, i know that quite obviously Apple are a business and like any business they want to make money and so favour the big hitters.

I can't help but think that by essentially edging out the little guys they are not only turning their backs on what and who made the AppStore as popular as it is. But there are a heck of a lot of good apps from a lot of indie developers that could be good revenue streams for both the developers and Apple. They just never get the chance to be discovered these days.

Which is a shame as more support could help keep innovation alive and kicking. Before we get to the point where it's like home consoles and we get 15 years of EA churning out the same crap but with all new grass in this years version. But I digress.

As a consumer I get bored of seeing the same apps week after week, after week. In fact in some cases for well over a year. And they don't exactly make it easy to find other apps, I hate trawling through the AppStore, it's such a chore trying to find something new and different at times.

Sometimes I look at the AppStore and get the impression that its stagnating, which of course couldn't be further from the truth, it's just that for the 59th month running Apple are trying to shove candy bloody crush or yet another boring Angry Birds spin off and their ilk down our throats yet again.

The thing is, these apps and games from the big guys really don't need Apples help to sell on the store. People will find them just as easily, after all they have the marketing budgets to make sure that happens.

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying there shouldn't be front page support for the big names, far from it. There are after all some great apps and it's probably what the general public want to see, because they know it. But more could be done to better support smaller developers and certainly a lot could be done to make app discovery a lot better for consumers.

Good god I don't half go off on one when I get started 😉

Well said my friend. Its true, Apple is only interested in big guys now, they forgot their roots and who made them successful. The iPhones success is likely attributable to the introduction of the Appstore and its success due to indie developers adopting it.

Unfortunately Apple has been spending its time buying overvalued companies like Beats and responding to Tylor Swift tweets. I really think they lost their way since Jobs (sorry for having to bring that up). I highly doubt their Apple Music will be a big hit, especially because they offer nothing extraordinary. Buying Beats for the two guys is a dumb idea, instead they should have done to music what they did to Apps, create a market place for indie developers and give them the tools to succeed.

So like the Apple Watch, it will mostly be one of the most successful flops in history. Meaning it will get a few million subscribers but it will not be a revolutionary product that changes lives and even grow Apple. It will just be another source of income.

 

[Gasu E.]

Agreed. "Our sister site is looking for donations" is easy enough and honest.

How was it dishonest? Because you had to read all the way through an article on the impact of chart positioning on small developers to get to the plea? You got "conned" into doing some extra reading? smh

 

[Benjamin Frost]

Don't forget about, angry crossy flapping bird pig crush game of skill sudoku bubble run pop candy mania frenzy saga rush.

Maybe I'm just a teeny bit irrational but those games with every word you can think of in the title should be the first thing to be wiped from the AppStore and never allowed to return. And thats the consumer in me speaking, just winds me up somehow.

Your post made me lol.

That app name...🙂

 

[1458279]

Well said my friend. Its true, Apple is only interested in big guys now, they forgot their roots and who made them successful. The iPhones success is likely attributable to the introduction of the Appstore and its success due to indie developers adopting it.

Unfortunately Apple has been spending its time buying overvalued companies like Beats and responding to Tylor Swift tweets. I really think they lost their way since Jobs (sorry for having to bring that up). I highly doubt their Apple Music will be a big hit, especially because they offer nothing extraordinary. Buying Beats for the two guys is a dumb idea, instead they should have done to music what they did to Apps, create a market place for indie developers and give them the tools to succeed.

So like the Apple Watch, it will mostly be one of the most successful flops in history. Meaning it will get a few million subscribers but it will not be a revolutionary product that changes lives and even grow Apple. It will just be another source of income.

It might have been true at the start that Apple owed some success to the indie devs, but I'd guess most of them had their run and lost out to the big guys. Once the big guys came to town, the role of the indie changed forever. I would guess most indies don't show up on the charts as more than an blimp from time to time. Esp when you consider the number of indies out there. About the only thing I can think of for Apple to do is to make a separate section for indies to allow them to stand out a bit.