They would do it because it would be the honest thing to do. One of the dumbest things the modern world produces is PR. Are you fooled by it? Not all smoke and mirrors, but never deny that Apple's marketing plays a huge part in their popularity.
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Apple Cracking Down on "Cookie Cutter" App Store Applications?
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They would do it because it would be the honest thing to do. One of the dumbest things the modern world produces is PR. Are you fooled by it? Not all smoke and mirrors, but never deny that Apple's marketing plays a huge part in their popularity.
Apple Cracking Down on "Cookie Cutter" App Store Applications?
I wonder how many of you who rail against Apple's App Store restrictions still shop at Walmart? After all they forced RubberMade, an exemplary American Company, out of business by first taking all their output, then forcing them to reduce their prices to below cost, than pulling the rug out from under them by switching to cheap Chinese manufacturers. And this is just one American Company they bankrupted. I don't think Apple is in their class.
I wonder how many of you who rail against Apple's App Store restrictions still shop at Walmart? After all they forced RubberMade, an exemplary American Company, out of business by first taking all their output, then forcing them to reduce their prices to below cost, than pulling the rug out from under them by switching to cheap Chinese manufacturers. And this is just one American Company they bankrupted. I don't think Apple is in their class.
I'm not talking just about these duplicates, I'm talking about the "porn" apps, the wifi apps, etc. etc.
I shop at Target too, and it's a great example of stocking products that are above a certain quality level. Wal-Mart usually has more stuff on the shelves, but I'm far more likely to find what I want/need at Target.
Apple's just being like Target and taking all the junk off the shelves.
But who decides what is considered "junk"? What's the cutoff line between useful and not useful? What if it's an app that the developer has been selling, not just a free app? Don't forget that in all cases of taking "junk off the shelves," this is an app that Apple already approved and potentially made 30% on themselves, and the developer might rely on the income. How would a developer appeal something that is by any standard a completely arbitrary decision?
How is it dishonest to report that 3 billion apps have been downloaded if 3 billion apps have been downloaded?
What are you talking about? Am I fooled by the fact that they claim 3 billion apps have been downloaded when 3 billion apps have been downloaded?
Their products also play a huge part in their popularity.
Maybe the people who are not buying the product? I mean there is a reason stuff that sells gets re-purchased and re-stocked. I am sorry but there are 10's of thousands of people trying to get there item in the big box stores. Not all of them can make it.
I am glad. Purge the hell out of the store. You take the chance when you purchase the $99 fee to put your app in the store. Tuff sh&t if your item gets the axe or doesn't cut the mustard. Welcome to the free economy. IF you don't like it, move along. There are many people behind you that will fill the vacancy.
Apple can and will dictate what the will sell and won't sell. Sorry it is the plain simple fact. The same can be said of Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy etc......... If you think ever tom dick and hairy has a right to sell something in the store, you are sorely mistaken.
I am sorry but if a product isn't moving why would you want to keep it on the shelves?
3 billion apps have been downloaded, and now they should remove the figures for the apps that they now consider unworthy of sale. If they aren't worthy of being on the app store, they aren't worthy of being included in the statistics either. Clearly you are fooled by PR.
Apple's products are good, but the iPod is not the best music player, the iPhone did not introduce features to smartphones that aren't already there. iTunes is not the cheapest place to buy your music. People will buy their products for the looks and because they know the name. I know a good deal of people who buy iPods simply because they know that name, and see all their friends have one. They didn't bother to check whether Sony offer one with better sound quality, or that Creative have cheaper ones of similar quality.
I think the people who want to buy it or not. That doesn't mean the stores don't try to guess what will be popular or not before actually stocking the shelves. But even if WalMart thinks it's a quality product, they're not going to keep it on the shelves out of principle. Conversely, if they happen to let a junk product on the shelves by mistake, and it turns out to be a best-seller, they're going to re-stock it, don't you think?
Isn't that much the same way physical stores work? Product manufacturers are ultimately at the mercy of distributors and the stores themselves determining which products are on the shelves. This is the case with existing products as well. Stores get to choose what they sell.
Since almost every App Store related discussion devolves into censorship debates, maybe we should just start a different thread about that, and instead of debating the point ad nauseam we could just link the interested parties over there...
Good for business, but ultimately bad for the consumer giving a business so much power. The balance needs to be shifted towards the consumer, not towards the business. It's a very dangerous precedent to set. Businesses should be begging us consumers for our business, not us asking them nicely to let us buy a product.
"In short, Apple doesn't want people using native applications for things that a basic web app could accomplish."
Right. I guess that was why they [Apple] developed iTunes... which is basically just a – webkit driven – browser. Duh!
And a fair bit of QA won't hurt anyone. It is a good thing. I however would much rather see / vote for better categories and search in iTunes.
Right. I guess that was why they [Apple] developed iTunes... which is basically just a – webkit driven – browser. Duh!
And a fair bit of QA won't hurt anyone. It is a good thing. I however would much rather see / vote for better categories and search in iTunes.
Perception is part of the entire product package. Marketing can be done by any company.
Some do it better than others, but implying that people choosing to buy Apple products are somehow dumber than customers of other companies because they are "fooled by PR" is ridiculous.
I was talking about a product that WAS moving, but ok. Like for example, my own app on the store that I sell could to some eyes LOOK like the "cookie cutter" app that is being derided here, but it looks that way by design. Not only is that design an efficient way to present information, it's also the design that Apple encourages in their guidelines (I'm talking about a tab bar and list design). It is not a generated app, it is coded from scratch and I put a lot of work into it keeping its content up to date. So far I've made over $2,000 on it.
Now what stops this arbitrary decision maker from snipping my app in some big purge simply because by adhering to their Human Interface Guidelines document, it might look similar to the "cookie cutter app"?
Well, the one difference is that if Von's doesn't stock what you like, you can take your dollars over to Ralph's, no matter how crappy a grocery store they are.
With the iPhone, since there's no way to put non-App Store products in your pantry, there's kind of an expectation by some of us that they be a little more lenient on what they let onto the shelves or not.
That's not to suggest that they don't need to clean up the organization a bit, but the only store in town shouldn't be preventing you from going to a store in another town if the only store in town is refusing to sell stuff you want to buy.
I really don't want to get into the "you don't have to use an iPhone" debate. If I have an iPhone, on contract, I do have to use an iPhone until that contract is up. (Not me personally, my Nexus One lets me put any crap app I want on it, thank you very much, Google. LOL)
Apple seems to be changing the rules as they go along rather than updating and innovating the way products are searched for and categorised in the app store. If I've paid $99 to develop for the iPhone, and I've built an app that adheres to all the Apple guidelines, there should be no circumstance in which Apple can then remove my app. If they did, I'd certainly expect some form of compensation from them since they have changed the terms and conditions of contract. In the interest of consumer freedoms and rights, we should be strongly opposing this kind of corporate censorship. It's a very slippery slope if we green light Apple to go ahead with this purge.
I never said they were dumb. I will say you are for putting words in my mouth. I just said that they don't pay a whole lot of attention to making a decision on which MP3 player to buy. In this situation PR plays a big part. And I dislike PR because as I showed with the download statistics it is often a case of being economic with the truth, or playing on people's ignorance.
Regardless of whether or not the apps are "worthy" of anything has nothing to do with whether or not they were downloaded. No PR spin fooling anybody.
Some people think so.
Of course it did. The iPhone OS is a feature. Mobile Safari is a feature. Usability is a feature.
Who claimed it was?
Some people buy them for these reasons. Some people don't buy them for the exact same reasons. Some people buy them because they are the best product for their usage. Believe it or not, sound quality is not the only thing people care about.
The store owner still makes the decision as to what goes on the shelves. Consumer demand is just one of the things they take into account.
Of course it is. Apple are saying "Look how great our store is. There have been 3 Billion apps downloaded." Then in the next breath they say "However some of these apps are not worth your attention." So the apps were at first something to be proud of and then they are something to be ashamed of. Advertising execs must love you.
But Apple is not, or doesn't seem to be from my limited perspective, considering consumer demand at all.
I think it will come back to haunt them some day. They've already driven me and my little clique from the iPhone platform, for what very very little that is worth. I imagine as more competitive platforms (Android and Windows Mobile 7 or whatever they call it) mature, more people may feel less compelled to play by Apple's rules in the coming years.
Personally, I'm still kind of shell-shocked over the change from "think different" and "screw the man" of Apple Computer, Inc.'s culture of the past to the "my way or the highway" culture of Apple, Inc.
My post wasn't directed at you. Sorry for the confusion. More directed at those who have apps that are not selling and have been cookie cutted into 10-20-30+ other apps.
