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Should Apple purge its app store periodically?

Abazigal

Abazigal

Contributor
Original poster
Jul 18, 2011
20,920
25,183
Singapore
I know, one man's trash is easily another man's gold.

Apple likes to tout the fact that its app store currently has the most number of apps. However, I think it is no small secret that a lot of the apps are either freemium crap or so limited in usage that I don't understand why anyone might actually waste time and resources programming them!

Personally, if you ask me, maybe around 15-20% of the apps in the store are of any real use. At a glance, easily 100,000 apps could be removed there and then. The purpose would be to not only restore the integrity and prestige of the app store, but also to send a message to existing programmers that crap will not be tolerated.

The devil would be in the details, such as how to determine which ones are undeniably worthless crap. But the fact is that I don't bother searching in the app store anymore. I simply research online for the apps that may be useful to me, then download it straight.

Thoughts?
 
agreed. 700,000 apps of which probably 600,000 are obsolete/garbage/useless.
 
There are good arguments for and against it.

There are problems incurred with a purge; what happens to existing customers? They just get left in the lurch? Who gets to decide what constitutes a 'good enough' app? One app might look awful from screenshots, but provide unique features that a small number of customers have to have.

Also, why do they need it? Theoretically, the combination of sales figures amd ratings should let the best quality apps get noticed and attract customers without excluding developers.

Arguably what is needed is better search & discovery.
 
AFAIK, if a developer ever stops paying to renew his yearly Apple Developer membership, the stuff he publishes disappears from the store.

So in that sense, the App Store at least purges abandoned apps.
 
I think it would be nice if Apple crack down on false advertising apps with false reviews. Remember those customisable lock screen apps?

But what I really want is an ability to test app before you buy.
 
Abazigal said:
I know, one man's trash is easily another man's gold.

Apple likes to tout the fact that its app store currently has the most number of apps. However, I think it is no small secret that a lot of the apps are either freemium crap or so limited in usage that I don't understand why anyone might actually waste time and resources programming them!

Personally, if you ask me, maybe around 15-20% of the apps in the store are of any real use. At a glance, easily 100,000 apps could be removed there and then. The purpose would be to not only restore the integrity and prestige of the app store, but also to send a message to existing programmers that crap will not be tolerated.

The devil would be in the details, such as how to determine which ones are undeniably worthless crap. But the fact is that I don't bother searching in the app store anymore. I simply research online for the apps that may be useful to me, then download it straight.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

What is "crap"?

I don't consider these Apps to be of any use, so I'd have no problem seeing them removed:

  • Yelp
  • Instagram
  • iBooks
  • Podcasts
  • iTunes U
  • Anything in Newsstand
  • PayPal
  • TuneIn Radio
  • iMovie
  • iPhoto
  • Pages
  • Keynote
  • Numbers
  • whatsapp

I bet a lot of people would deem "Facebook" and "Twitter" to be crap too.
 
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