Apple Implementing Changes to App Store Rankings to Promote Better App Discovery

[kant]

I have a specific suggestion for a feature request.

When you shop for used cars one can select body style, make, model, year range, even fuel or drive train options and it comes up with a list which you can then sort by a criterion such as price or geographic.

I would like to see a similar thing as an option for searching apps since there are so many of them. If I am looking for a particular utility by function I do not know its name or its publisher.

If I am looking for a game I would like to be able to search by style (first shooter), age appropriateness (under 18 only), or other features like if I am searching on an iPad to emphasize the ones tailored for iPad, bit not eliminate the ones for iPhone.

There you go. Run with that a bit.

Rocketman

I would like to see a running list of apps tailored to remedial education by subject and age, so whenever it's needed the list is up to date.

Agree, agree, agree.

As a customer, give me a way to drill down to apps that fit the criteria I'm looking for. There has to be a way for me to find the app(s) that fit what I'm looking for.

Essentially, I want newegg.com's search function.

If I have to know the name of the product your search function has already failed. If you're a developer, the attached app store pic (the Battery Status dev from upthread as an example) should piss you off because your potential customer is annoyed, frustrated, and confused by results like this.

App Store: I get a name, category, ratings, and price. And a pretty picture.

Newegg: I get the name, ratings, price, and pretty picture. Oh yeah, and some actually useful information.

 

[kant]

App Store: I get a name, category, ratings, and price. And a pretty picture.

Newegg: I get the name, ratings, price, and pretty picture. Oh yeah, and some actually useful information.

I purchased the Battery Status app BECAUSE the dev gave me a short description of what it does. "The only app that'll estimate when your wireless devices will need their batteries changed." Unfortunately for him, I found that description in his signature on a forum. Not in the app store search results. (BTW, is there a limit to the number of machines I'm allowed to install that on? I have a new laptop and iMac for me. An old laptop I keep in the workshop. And my Dad's mini in his room.)

 

[Piggie]

Apps with IAP make more money for developers, and thus for Apple. If anything that encourages developers to do more of them and Apple to promote more of them. IAP is the modern form of try-before-buying.

If you don't like them, read the description before downloading, and don't download them.

Or write your own free/paid apps and games and see how that goes.

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A huge percentage of apps deserve to be zombies. A lot of developers don't put enough quality work into an app for it to deserve discovery. But leave them in the store because everybody's junk might be one person's perfect flea market find. The long tail.

I would be happy to loose all the devs who try and screw customers this way.

Either make a proper program and charge a proper price, get some money from advertising, or release it free

Don't say free and then try and screw customers by making it hard to play unless they spend more money.

As I say it's a cancer that has only been growing over the last few years and needs to be cut out.

 

[firewood]

I would be happy to loose all the devs who try and screw customers this way.

Either make a proper program and charge a proper price, get some money from advertising, or release it free.

If you think you can make money to pay the rent doing that, you are free to make and distribute your apps that way.

 

[maxosx]

My dad recently got an S3, and I helped him install a bunch of free apps (Skype, Whatsapp, etc.) I was honestly very impressed with the Play store (my first time using Android.) Searching for the apps was nearly instant, and installing each one only took a couple seconds. It's a far cry from the chuggy, laggy mess that is the iOS App Store.

You've brought up a very good point. In my extended family most everyone used an iPhone till last year. Out of the same frustration I share regarding Apples tiny display, and seeing how nice the Galaxy series are, a majority migrated to Android. Several asked me for some tips & tricks in order to get up to speed quickly.

One quite noticeable improvement in the Google Play Store is speed. Unlike discovering them one by one as many of us typically do when new, I had a list of apps handed to me for each Android I was setting up. I found it was much faster than I anticipated, plus in the process I discovered a few for myself. The improvements to Googles Play Store are quite nice. Making it a pleasure to use.

Overall the Google & Samsung alliance is most impressive. It's no wonder Apple is playing hardball with them. The threat they present to Apple is highly formidable.

 

[fluchtpunkt]

When you shop for used cars one can select body style, make, model, year range, even fuel or drive train options and it comes up with a list which you can then sort by a criterion such as price or geographic.

That works because the inner workings of each car are basically the same. Each car has an engine, a transmission and each car runs on some sort of fuel. Easy to categorize.

Apps not so much. Contrary to cars, you can't compare arbitrary apps with each other.
For each app type (not category!) Apple would have to create a specific set of items to use for categorization.
This will neither be as easy as for a car nor does it help app discovery very much. Games is probably the only category where there is a small chance that this would work.

Try to categorize TweetBot. "It does Twitter", that's basically it.

I would like to see a running list of apps tailored to remedial education by subject and age, so whenever it's needed the list is up to date.

Yes. Imho lists are the best way to solve discoverability issues in the App Store.

But I think of hand curated lists that change every week in the more active categories and twice a month or only once a month in the less frequented categories. Apple should feature a different list in each App Store category. For example the first list in the games category will be about First Person Shooters, next they would show plattform games.
Those list should not be longer than maybe ten apps, and the apps on these lists should be selected manually by the review team.

Similar to what they did with their "Get Stuff Done" Mac App Store Promotion in january. Just without the discount part.

And lists from previous week should be available too. If you want to play a good shooter you could just look at the list from 3 months ago. Something that was great back then is most likely still great.

And if there is something outstanding nobody will stop Apple from adding it to one of the previous lists.


At least for me the Top Lists are kind of useless. And because the App Store is so heavily centered around those Top Lists I use the App Store very little to find apps. If the people I follow on twitter wouldn't mention new apps daily I would have downloaded literally zero apps this year.

 

[TouchMint.com]

A huge percentage of apps deserve to be zombies. A lot of developers don't put enough quality work into an app for it to deserve discovery. But leave them in the store because everybody's junk might be one person's perfect flea market find. The long tail.

Apple does do a little to avoid "junk" / apps that have not been updated recently. Search rankings include a slight bump for apps that support ios6 / 4inch screen. I assume there will be a slight bump for apps that support ios7 as well. This bump should be a little high IMO but I'll take it.

 

[steve333]

I'm very surprised that there are no maintenance apps in the app store, like YASU, Cocktail, Main Menu, etc.
No repair programs like Disc Doctor or Techtool, etc either

 

[Piggie]

If you think you can make money to pay the rent doing that, you are free to make and distribute your apps that way.

No, you don't get it.

I don't care.

I'd rather the people who made these apps either charged the price they want for the full version of got a different job.

Not produce this garbage and almost blackmail kids into giving them more money.

Apple should either ban them totally (they won't do) Or place them in a 3rd category so everyone knows what they are.

 

[BarryL]

I'm very surprised that there are no maintenance apps in the app store, like YASU, Cocktail, Main Menu, etc.
No repair programs like Disc Doctor or Techtool, etc either

Apple won't allow any utility apps. iOS is designed not to need these, so they say...

 

[steve333]

Apple won't allow any utility apps. iOS is designed not to need these, so they say...

What about for the computer OS? I see none in the App Store

 

[Maverick1337]

I will never understand Apple's reasoning for changing how the App Store looked. They made the iPhone 5 taller but they decided to make crap wider (App Store, Weather)

 

[charlesdayton]

My dad recently got an S3, and I helped him install a bunch of free apps (Skype, Whatsapp, etc.) I was honestly very impressed with the Play store (my first time using Android.) Searching for the apps was nearly instant, and installing each one only took a couple seconds. It's a far cry from the chuggy, laggy mess that is the iOS App Store.

That's from a user point of view. But for developers Android App development, and specially testing is a nightmare.

 

[firewood]

... place them in a 3rd category so everyone knows what they are.

They are clearly labeled, "Top In-App Purchases", right above the version history, for anyone who can read. If you don't like them (millions do), then don't download them. Nobody forces anyone to download a game app (unless your job is app QA/testing or such).

 

[ls1dreams]

I'm not sure that they are weighting the rating that much yet.

I worked on the app of a MAJOR newspaper that's rated in the 50's right now with 4.5 stars in the news category, while there are dozens of 2-3* apps above it.

 

[harlemexplosion]

I'm very surprised that there are no maintenance apps in the app store, like YASU, Cocktail, Main Menu, etc.
No repair programs like Disc Doctor or Techtool, etc either

Probably because Apple's devices don't need to be "maintained" they tend to make devices that doesn't require you to always have to fiddle with "maintenance"

 

[pavinder]

I'm totally confused why this should be such a difficult issue.

Why is it so difficult to implement an advanced search page, where we can choose things like:

1. categories to include in the search (via checkboxes)
2. keywords within the app description/name
3. a "sort by" field (ranking, number of downloads, date, name, etc)
4. a "display style" selection (list only, icon and description, etc)


This would be really very simple, wouldn't it?

 

[Solver]

It almost seems that Apple's group think believes that putting effort in making a better customer experience in search results would be detrimental. A little company called Google tried this and look what happened.

 

[GoldenJoe]

Rather dangerous criteria. If they crack down on cheats, this will be great, but if they allow large companies to buy hundreds or even thousands of five star ratings from those shady services, then this just breaks the system and shuts out indie developers. If the indies go, then that's the beginning of the end of the App Store's dominance.

 

[steve333]

Probably because Apple's devices don't need to be "maintained" they tend to make devices that doesn't require you to always have to fiddle with "maintenance"

Not really true, OSX has to run cron but the computer has to be on for it to be done and it usually does it in the middle of the night. There are other issues such as removing system cache that those utilities take care of

 

[harlemexplosion]

Not really true, OSX has to run cron but the computer has to be on for it to be done and it usually does it in the middle of the night. There are other issues such as removing system cache that those utilities take care of

Ok. let me narrow that down to Apple Mobile devices.