"Theres an app for that..."

[kas23]

Why would Apple want to destroy the Long Tail of the App Store?

All I'm asking for developers to take a more active, responsible roll for what they add to the App Store. There are too many "get rich quick' deveolpers out there. For Pete's sake, there are still brand new tip calculators coming out. Are these really needed?

Besides, if the community is active enough, the rating system should remove the junk (by pushing it down) and promote the good stuff (by letting it bubble to the top).

But the rating system doesn't remove apps. I can understand if Apple wants to run-up App numbers (for marketing's sake), but that radio of quality-to-crap apps will be even worse tomorrow than it is today.

I want quality apps as much as the next guy - but I get what Apple is doing. Do you tell Amazon to not stock items you think are dumb? Isn't Amazon "cluttered" by your definition?

Amazon lets the market decide what they stock. If an item is not selling, it will be dropped. Additionally, we have seen the numbers of Apps people actually use. People only regularly use about 1% of the apps they actually download. Sooner or later, the novelty (of crappy apps) is going to wear-off and people are just not going to buy them anymore. But, these apps will still be cluttering up the App Store. Are people really still buying fart apps, when there are a handful of "quality" fart apps for free? If not, why should these apps still be available (if not only for Apple's marketing)?

 

[cellocello]

Amazon lets the market decide what they stock. If an item is not selling, it will be dropped.

Is that true? From my understanding, Amazon is the poster child of the Long Tail.

Apple is in a tough position - who's to say if one fart/tip/game app is better than another? Dev A would be pissed if Dev B's app was the "chosen" fart app. And besides, Apple doesn't want to have to police this thing non-stop - they're already getting enough flack as it is regarding app submission/denial. Saying "Sorry guy, we already got a bank balance app" would get Apple slaughtered in the press.

The app store isn't a 'boutique' - it's a clearing house. But that's ok, as long as the community helps (such as 'which apps are good' threads ... like this one!)

 

[renewed]

As far as rating the apps goes (i.e. moving the better ones towards the top) it's really the users fault. I have seen plenty of reviews in the app store that sound like this: "this app is amazing. I love it. It is so useful". Yet they rate it one star.

How can the rating system be accurate when people don't even know that 5 stars means good and 1 star means crappy.