Not sure if you guys noticed it yet, but it seems Apple has modified the iPhone front-end to the App Store to only allow users to access up to the first 100 apps when browsing by category, with apparently no way around it. (Not unlike the listing setup used for “featured” and “top 25”.)
This leaves many apps hidden from view of the user when browsing the App Store using an iPhone/iPod Touch, and could pose a devastating blow to developers everywhere.
Is Apple trying to push the user away from accessing the App Store by iPhone/iPod Touch in favor of using iTunes for more intensive browsing?
Well, unfortunately browsing the store from the iphone sucked even before that change. Hope they will make it friendlier to discover new quality apps, not just the top stuff which naturally tends to freeze in its place.
problem with browsing it is likely the massive amount of apps and that sending it all to iphone would be a serious problem for many datasize wise …
but yeah I hope they find a way to give you more things to check AND not have a horrorfull check of your phone bill.
The problem is that this current setup does not apply only to cellular-based connections. This change applies to wifi connections as well. For iPod Touch users, this makes the app store a pointless feature outside of iTunes.
A distinct handling for wifi cellular would be nice yes.
But I think the most important thing is that it first works on the more restrictive end (cellular. iPhone is still the major userbase for the appstore) and then is expanded to suite the “open end” (wifi) as well.
for iTouch users its naturally a bit crap but in the end, you have iTunes at your hand and it will always be better than the app store.
Personally, I find the iTunes front-end incredibly uncomfortable to use. At least with the previous App Store setup on the iPhone/iPod Touch, you could access the entire list of apps in a category within a single, easy to navigate view.
The iTunes front-end only lets you see apps in groups of 21 per page. making it difficult to really compare multiple apps against one another. It’s sort of like comparing the more modern “column” view in the Finder to the more antiquated “icon” view.
You’re forced to sacrifice quick access to information for a pretty layout.
Mostly list’s in “the top 10 apps” style, and a few digg like sites that let you submit an app but do not offer the full range of what the store has to offer.
It shouldn’t be that hard though to scrape the entire itunes database and assemble an external site that offers new ways to sort apps based on existing rating’s (most popular today/this month would be a nice start). hope somebody (or apple themselves) will do it soon.
For me quite interesting the effect on the sales. I have 5 apps in there (also the “famous” Red Button → bestseller!) and since the change the sales of all apps except the red button and the ultimate sound jukebox went down a lot, next to zero, but those both apps went up high as they are now in the top 50 / top 75. Conclusion to me: People actually use the built-in app store a lot, more than the iTunes connection. Completly opposite to me. Hence getting the app/game up in the top 150 is nearly a must or the app sales go down to nothing or next to nothing.
I haven’t found ANY correlation between great reviews on external websites like fingertouch and touchgamer etc and sales.
My first game still sells 4 times the amount my third games does, even though my third game (Cloud Girls) got some great external reviews and is, in my opinion, probably a more polished and “funner” game.
We’ll see how my fourth game does (due to submit this week) and Widget Monkey.
Press releases don’t seem to help unless you have a major established brand … hopefully since we got so much press around the world with WM, that’ll help.
I think the store needs some serious work to make it easier to find good apps.
I was wondering how the apps (on the iPhone) are being selected… meaning are they showing the top 100 by date added, popularity, or what? So I opened up iTunes on my Mac and was comparing the results to what I see on the iPhone… I see some strange things happening!
I chose to compare the Weather category because it has the least amount of items. iTunes on the Mac states that there are 55 applications but the app store on the iPhone states there are 38. But here is what is really strange…
Compare the Mac version of iTunes in the Weather category with the iPhone version and you will see that the first 25 items listed on the iPhone match exactly with the items list on the Mac version of iTunes. But then click “Twenty Five More…” on the iPhone things get messed-up. It only loads 2 more apps and one of them is a duplicate of an app that is already listed (“Hurricanes”). Click “Twenty Five More” again and 25 more apps are displayed but many are duplicates of what have already been listed and, compared to what is on the Mac version of iTunes, they are in the wrong order!
This seems to be a bug in the iPhone version of App Store. Can someone else please try this and tell me of they get this behavior too?
Thanks.
My game dropped out of the top 100 after it was no longer a “Staff Pick” and now makes peanuts. And it’s impossible to find, unless you already know you want it.
That first month was amazing. A hint of good it could be for indies… now it’s just like everything else. And Apple has no particular mandate to make things better for indie developers.
The app store doesn’t have enough frontage for everyone. We need an ecosystem of press, blogs, media, reviews, that can lead buyers to the point of purchase. The store’s 500 words + a few screenshots + childish reviews is not helping indies break out.