Apple Has 'Secret Team' Working on App Store Changes, Including Paid Search Results

[smacrumon]

Sponsored MacRumors Comment​

​

First. Commenters opposing "Paid Search Results" need to send their comments directly to Apple Executive's and not only here on the MacRumors forum. @tim_cook @pschiller @AppStore

Second. Apple and some Apple shareholders... Greedy piggies?

I say "yes" on this front with disappointment.

Paid Search Results will turn the App Store into a completely undemocratic marketplace for discovering iOS software. This completely goes against "Apple values". Publishers that can afford to pay for featured positions will get prominent real estate. While publishers who can't afford this will be hidden away. And, the Apple end user will get the mediocrity that the rest of the industry already serves up.

What the App Store needs is better curation of interesting and great quality apps irrespective of budget for marketing. The App Store does not need paid searches. To encourage more quality apps to be written, the App Store also needs a large reduction of Apple's commission fee for paid apps from 30% to just 10%.

Apple is playing with fire

if it decides to go down this path of paid searches. Customers will leave the ecosystem if they get a sniff of Apple turning into a GoogleApple or a FacebookApple. Customers will leave to other platforms and not worry about services like iCloud, AppStore etc. Sure those Apple services are nice, BUT they aren't essential.

The differentiation between Apple and its competitors is lessening each day, so why should users stay? The answer is users shouldn't stay if this progresses.

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[johnnyjibbs]

Great, so penalise the small and independent developers who can't afford to pay for popularity.

 

[Shane O'Reilly]

Ive posted this before but I believe its a real problem and maybe someone from Apple will spot this and say something. Visibility is a problem on the App Store and its mostly because of clone / scam apps.

Here is what I am talking about:

There are thousands of minecraft clone apps that don't even work and the screenshots don't match the gameplay or play at all like the description. Apple has even featured some of these although they have nothing but 1 star reviews from people asking for their money back.

Here are a few examples.


NEW HEARTGOLD PIXELMON EDITION - Hunter & Survival Block Mini Game with Multiplayer by Tyrga Demtnon
https://appsto.re/us/Vsrx_.i


Build Battle : Mini Game with Multiplayer by ORGONITE DOO
https://appsto.re/us/FmkJ8.i


These games are making hundreds of not thousands a day simply by false advertisement on the store yet Apple doesn't seem to care.

Take a look at the role-playing and adventure top 150 games list. It is full of these scam apps im assuming all by the same developer just under different names so if one account gets banned they still have other accounts to bring in revenue.


PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS APPLE IF YOU ARE READING THIS. This is just one example of many... Pleas do a large clean up it makes it very hard to get any visibility on the store when half the apps on the lists are scams....

As an Indie Dev who launched their app this week on the App Store, the potential of paid positing in results is very concerning. This is not going to help indie devs with a marketing budget of 0.

I also 100% agree that all apps that are blatantly designed to confuse a customer into downloading their copied versions of a popular app should be culled from the AppStore.

 

[Jeremy1026]

Why should you have to pay for something that Apple should just be doing? I don't want to curation based on who has money to bid on keywords. Next thing you know Siri and proactive results will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Apple already gives keywords, but in a marketplace with millions of apps, your keywords are going to collide. The only way to get a new app off the ground is with a big media buy outside of the app store, hoping that those users will carry into the app store and download. I'd very happily cut out the middle man in Adsense or Facebook Ads and get in front of the user exactly where they are looking for an app.

 

[SteveW928]

Same reason nobody is using Google Search anymore. Oh, wait...

Umm, no. Google search actually works. It works so well nearly everyone is using it almost exclusively. ***THEN*** Google can monetize that traffic via paid advertising. People aren't using Google because it's pay to play. If the search wasn't excellent, they could never have started charging in the first place. Also, you can rank well in Google without paying if you create good content.

Apple's App Store search is dumb(er) as a rock. The problem is you can't even find what you're looking for if you know the exact name, or even describe what you're looking for really well.

Then take flat revenue*. Apple needs nothing Wall Street has to offer. Dealing with Wall Street is like making a deal with the devil. Don't play their game Apple, because "First rule of The Street is The Street takes care of The Street."

*besides, Apple has said many times before it does things for the long term and doesn't care about short term stock swings.

Well, that was before the 'new' Apple. Say what you like about Jobs, but he thumbed his nose at Wall Street, yet had them eating out of his hand. The management gang at Apple now, seem to be business 101 types. So, expect Apple to return to the mid-90s when it was being run by those types... i.e.: a typical tech company. It will take a while, though, while they burn off all of that hard earned reputation.

 

[Osamede]

Considering how much these devices cost and that Apple locks them to its own application shop only, the search functionality in the App store has been fairly pathetic in quality. Because it takes no cue from how the user would want to find things. So adding paid search (i.e. not user-driven) is just adding insult to injury.

 

[Rogifan]

Apple already gives keywords, but in a marketplace with millions of apps, your keywords are going to collide. The only way to get a new app off the ground is with a big media buy outside of the app store, hoping that those users will carry into the app store and download. I'd very happily cut out the middle man in Adsense or Facebook Ads and get in front of the user exactly where they are looking for an app.

This seems to me like a way to try and boost services revenue not improve the App Store. Apple should be helping indie developers get more exposure not ensuring that the big players with lots of money get even more prominent exposure on the App Store.

 

[teslo]

the problem with their app stores is that there's not enough filter options. if they're going to do this, they need to let us manually filter by popularity, relevance, ratings, and more. just having 'by date/featured/by name' isn't enough.

 

[cfc]

As an indie developer I didn't think the AppStore could get more biased towards the big companies, but it looks like I was wrong.

Over a third of people who find my app on the AppStore try it out and over 10% of those then go on to buy it, which are pretty good stats. However so few people actually find it on the AppStore that I make less than a couple of dollars a day on average.

If Apple insist on some sort of automated method of determining what to feature (instead of manual curation) then I think that they should use metrics like that. But instead they are chasing a few more bucks.

I just hope that the rumours are false.

 

[shareef777]

apple is rich enough. they're starting to get greedy.

starting?

 

[ChrisCW11]

Paid search results, cause if there is any company that needs mo money, it's Apple.

 

[Robert.Walter]

Umm, no. Google search actually works. It works so well nearly everyone is using it almost exclusively. ***THEN*** Google can monetize that traffic via paid advertising. People aren't using Google because it's pay to play. If the search wasn't excellent, they could never have started charging in the first place. Also, you can rank well in Google without paying if you create good content.

Apple's App Store search is dumb(er) as a rock. The problem is you can't even find what you're looking for if you know the exact name, or even describe what you're looking for really well.



Well, that was before the 'new' Apple. Say what you like about Jobs, but he thumbed his nose at Wall Street, yet had them eating out of his hand. The management gang at Apple now, seem to be business 101 types. So, expect Apple to return to the mid-90s when it was being run by those types... i.e.: a typical tech company. It will take a while, though, while they burn off all of that hard earned reputation.

Ummm, no. It was Tim and his team that I heard saying these things. I never associated "share price be dammed Jim!" with anybody but the current management or Dr. McCoy.

 

[smacrumon]

Sponsored MacRumors Comment​

​

First. Commenters opposing "Paid Search Results" need to send their comments directly to Apple Executive's and not only here on the MacRumors forum. @tim_cook @pschiller @AppStore

Second. Apple and some Apple shareholders... Greedy piggies?

I say "yes" on this front with disappointment.

Paid Search Results will turn the App Store into a completely undemocratic marketplace for discovering iOS software. This completely goes against "Apple values". Publishers that can afford to pay for featured positions will get prominent real estate. While publishers who can't afford this will be hidden away. And, the Apple end user will get the mediocrity that the rest of the industry already serves up.

What the App Store needs is better curation of interesting and great quality apps irrespective of budget for marketing. The App Store does not need paid searches. To encourage more quality apps to be written, the App Store also needs a large reduction of Apple's commission fee for paid apps from 30% to just 10%.

Apple is playing with fire

if it decides to go down this path of paid searches. Customers will leave the ecosystem if they get a sniff of Apple turning into a GoogleApple or a FacebookApple. Customers will leave to other platforms and not worry about services like iCloud, AppStore etc. Sure those Apple services are nice, BUT they aren't essential.

The differentiation between Apple and its competitors is lessening each day, so why should users stay? The answer is users shouldn't stay if this progresses.

Featured MacRumors Comment packages start from just $125 per comment.
Learn more about featuring your comment on MacRumors.​

 

[SteveW928]

Ummm, no. It was Tim and his team that I heard saying these things. I never associated "share price be dammed Jim!" with anybody but the current management or Dr. McCoy.

The *only* thing I can think of in the last 5+ years that remotely resembles Apple not having lips attached to Stock Market you-know-what is the Apple vs. FBI thing. (And, while it's the right thing to do, can't be bad for their bottom line either!) Pretty much every other move has been to increase profits at the expense of user experience (either purposely, or accidentally because they just don't focus on user experience anymore).

 

[TouchMint.com]

Another great point here is that google actually shows relevant search items at the top. You actually get dropped if your site isn't mobile ready for example.

Apple wants us to update our apps to use all their new features in our apps yet some 3.5 inch only apps sit at the top of searches? Some apps that don't even open on iOS 9 sit at the top as well. There's no reason an app that is 6 years old and doesn't work on new devices should still even be on the store let alone a top result.

 

[Dj64Mk7]

Hopefully those results are clearly marked as "sponsored" or something similar. Otherwise, this seems like a really bad idea.

That's actually great idea.

 

[firewood]

Google search results for apps are often better than the iOS App store's search results.

Why? One reason might be that Google's sponsored (read "paid") search results helps keep the free results more honest.

How? If all the results are from app spammers, then any app that appears in the search results has an equal chance of bringing in revenue. Add just a few apps from developers willing to "put their money where their mouth is", and the spam apps look worse by comparison and make less money, thus dropping them out of contention. Whereas "real" apps often look better than the paid results, and start rising with less contention from the dropping spam.

 

[smacrumon]

Google search results for apps are often better than the iOS App store's search results.

Why? One reason might be that Google's sponsored (read "paid") search results helps keep the free results more honest.

How? If all the results are from app spammers, then any app that appears in the search results has an equal chance of bringing in revenue. Add just a few apps from developers willing to "put their money where their mouth is", and the spam apps look worse by comparison and make less money, thus dropping them out of contention. Whereas "real" apps often look better than the paid results, and start rising with less contention from the dropping spam.

I hardly look at sponsored searches, but look at the "organic" most relevant top 20. The top 20 are not paid, only the sponsored searches are paid.

 

[BulkSlash]

Paid search results? DO NOT WANT.

I stopped using Google to get away from that.

 

[CFreymarc]

The rich get richer and the independents well.........

Either get rich by using social skills by promoting or keep on coding at a nearby coffee shop while they collect welfare payments.

It is amazing how many in Scandinavia that pushes Linux are on the public dole and code all the time without much social interaction.

 

[twocents]

Exactly. Apple's trajectory is waaaaay off. Paid sponsorship does not equal quality product. Paid sponsorship simply means the publisher could afford to promote their subpar wares and shove it into people's faces. The App Store doesn't need more casino style apps.

Exactly! Take a game like Lifeline compared with one made by EA or King. With small, indie developers, they want to grab people's attention by making apps that are unique and quality that often mean you don't have to use in-app purchases. Speaking of which IAPs have definitely been hijacked from their intended use to support the freemium market the App Store has evolved into which has done little to improve apps for users

 

[CFreymarc]

Paid search results is definitely NOT the way to get apps noticed. It will further the cause of the "big guys" and continue pushing our small little apps deeper and deeper down in the pile.

What we need are people who, like in the iTunes store, find good talent and promote that. Find apps that are actually GOOD and push the bad ones down instead of finding the apps that have the most money in the top of the list.

Dude, the app store has been around for over five years now. The artist colony has been bulldozed with condos built in its place. This is an inevitable growth of any market or industry. First the explorers come in, most die but some find gold. That creates a rush from the general population establishing products and services. The iPhone gold rush is over and it is time for the explorers to move to other technologies.

Wearables are at the same growth phase as mobile systems were fifteen to twenty years ago. That is, a lot of failures (some comical) with a handful doing well (FitBit, etc.) with no real industry leader. Want to keep wearing the tie-dye t-shirt and working a bohemian schedule with your lovers rotating in and out? Get out of mobile systems!

It is fun to have your companions wearing an embedded system running your code. I've been with a wearable start-up for three years now and it rings of the early mobile systems days. Eventually, this market will also mature when some big vender buys out a few start-ups other will grow up and others die off. Just business. Get with it.
[doublepost=1460744436][/doublepost]

Paid search results? DO NOT WANT.

I stopped using Google to get away from that.

What is really needed in the business is a good, reputable and independent mobile app review source. While there have been an attempt at doing a "consumer reports" for mobile systems, none have really taken traction.

 

[smacrumon]

It's official, the App Store, with its market share and closed rules has become anti competitive. Bring on the case of the People versus Apple.

 

[CFreymarc]

It's official, the App Store, with its market share and closed rules has become anti competitive. Bring on the case of the People versus Apple.

Good luck on that one. Apple does not have a majority market share in the smartphone market.

 

[firewood]

Good luck on that one. Apple does not have a majority market share in the smartphone market.

Nor in the mobile app market. Play store is bigger in raw units.

Paid placement might work, as long as it is labeled and in to addition to AI/algorithmic placement and curated/reviewed placement as well.