I would of expected a consistent experience for the iPad as I have with my iPhone when accessing the app store app. My interpretation is that they are pushing venue hard in terms of app fee price point and lack of free offerings or opportunities to check them out. In another words the iPad app store doesn't really give you many free sections like each category on the iPhone does...agree?
Why should everything be free? I have bought a number of apps for my iPad that I consider to be good values
It is less time consuming to write an app for the iPhone due to screen resolution as this requires less artwork assets etc. Your overall project is smaller, whereas on the iPad it is the opposite. A developer for the most part 'could' be wasting his time making a free app on the appstore, as it would be better developing for the smaller iPhone store instead as that has a much, much larger userbase.
What I have been suggesting is a universal app store for both the iphone and ipad. In terms of having a consistent experience throughout using the the ap store. I reconize the reason and appreciate what developers have to do to get their apps into apple. Perhaps as time eveoloves it may come a more universal ui. But, until then I wish their was a 3 way filtering system like the apps store oon the iphone...Not only because it is easy to check out the demo aps~free ones before I purchase but also many other pieces to the portfolio.
I don't understand how apps get in the popular list. I know we must all get fed up with seeing the same old apps in the list as at times, it seems to take an age to get fresh items get in the list. Both free and paid for. What seems odd if that sometimes, a new app seems to be in the top despite having almost no reviews and no ratings. I don't know if it's fair as it's sort of self perpetuates a popular app. It gets to be popular, and cos it's popular more download it, keeping it popular and so it goes on, whilst other great things may not make the list and don't get the boost that simply being on the list gives them. Kind of like no name celebrities, that have no skill apart from being famous.
I hate Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and couple other. These are ALWAYS in the top 20 or so!!!
This statement gets repeated a lot but isn't true - at least not in a significant enough way that matters. There is a little bit more design effort in creating more pixels but it's minor in the scope of an entire project. It's actually more work to build for iPhone/iPod because you have two resolutions to design for, more OS fragmentation, and a number of hardware versions with differing performance. Yes, the way Apple markets inside the App Store causes the top lists to be self-reinforcing. Apple seems to want brand names and big hits. Take a look at Amazon as an alternative way to design a store that drives people to more diverse purchases.