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12-step program to improve the iTunes App Store
The iTunes app store offers such a gigantic cornucopia of choices, it's downright bewildering. How will you ever find that gem in that pile of rubble that's 70,000 pieces high? Studies show that when presented with too many choices, cognitive overload prevails, and people end up not making a choice at all, resulting in no sale. It's a paradox of choice.
There's got to be a better way. How can Apple make the iTunes App Store better for us eager buyers who first feel like a kid in a candy shop, and then end up with so many choices we can't pick one? The company's already improved a few things, but there's still a long way to go.
1. Meaningful ratings. Get more users to rate each application they've used by making it pay off — if you've entered lots of ratings, iTunes could accurately predict other applications you're likely to enjoy. Apple's slowly moving in that direction — many users haven't noticed, but Apple just implemented Genius recommendations for the App Store (it's a new tab in the App Store, on the top right in the "Featured" section). It's a great start, but all it's doing is riffing off the applications you already bought.
2. Crowd-sourcing prediction engine. This would make those ratings even more powerful. The idea works great for Netflix, comparing your ratings with others, and predicting which apps you'll like with uncanny accuracy.
3. Customers who bought this app also bought.... Steal this idea from Amazon, and it'll help people find other applications similar to the ones they're considering. Update: This is available on the desktop iTunes App Store, but we'd like to see it on the iPhone and iPod Touch.
4. Sale alert. There are already websites that let you know when apps are cheaper, but the store itself should alert us to applications that are temporarily on sale at lower prices. Let us sort those apps by the percentage you can save and dollar amount.
5. Polarizing apps. There are some applications that many people love and many others hate at the same time, with few in between. That's a sure-fire indicator something intense is going on in those apps. What is it about those controversial applications? Reveal the most polarizing examples in a sortable list. As a side effect, we might be able to determine which apps were praised by their spamming developers, but no one else.
6. Automatic password entry. Must we always be required to enter a password, over and over again? Even when we're simply updating a free app? Sure, this is a security issue, but there must be some way to reduce the number of times we have to enter a password into our own iPhone or iPod Touch.
7. Fix iTunes. We're getting fed up with that clunky iTunes interface on Windows, with its nonstandard user experience. Worse, it's a dog-slow application, especially on an older PC. Beyond that, the new app icon sorting feature is almost more difficult to use than sliding application icons around on the iPhone or iPod Touch. Come on, Apple, you can do better than this.
8. Works on the iPod Touch? Why can't the App Store sense which device is interacting with it, differentiating between an iPhone 1G, 2G, 3G, 3GS and iPod touch? That way, users won't get stuck with software that's incompatible with their particular device.
9. Open a boutique for fancy, expensive apps. We love the huge selection of cheap and free applications, but there should be a separate area for those specialized, elaborate and sophisticated applications that cost a lot. Think pricey navigation apps, that $20 birdwatching app, gems like that. It would be fun just to browse through them, and who knows, we might just find a reason to spend a hundred bucks on impulse. Short of a stylized boutique, at least let us sort all the apps by price.
10. Sort by rating. Let us sort applications by how users have rated them. Sorting options are meager, only letting you sort between best-selling free apps, paid apps, what's new, categories and featured, with the addition of "Top Grossing." Sales are interesting for developers and businesspeople, but we'd like to know which apps are the most highly rated, and we'd also like to reverse-sort to see which apps are in the doghouse (we're looking at you, extensive collection of fart applications).
11. Side loading. Apple could keep its walled garden of approved-by-mommy software, while at the same time opening it up to whichever applications people want to submit. Apple could make it clear that users download such unsupported software at their own risk. It wouldn't be a big deal to implement this — there's already an ad hoc distribution method that's restricted to 100 users.
12. Hire more than 40 reviewers. We're feeling sorry for these poor overworked souls saddled with reviewing thousands of applications every day. If there were more reviewers, apps could be more current, with surprising spur-of-the-moment choices suddenly popping up to the amusement of all. Think about it : a next-day "Don't Tase Me, Bro" app.
By Random iTard at 8:54 AM ON 10/05/09
OMG Dvice is teh bias, <3 Appel!!!
By ej at 9:27 AM ON 10/05/09
#13 Add a "wish list" feature
By Rael at 10:47 AM ON 10/05/09
Create a web based version of iTunes app store so people can browse at work where they don't have iTunes. ej you can send your wishlist to us :P
By Mihos at 10:56 AM ON 10/05/09
Just enable flash 10 and render 99% of the 'apps' obsolete.....
By monster at 1:45 PM ON 10/05/09
I agree with a lot of these points, but others are just ridiculous.
There is already a "Customers also bought" section.
I also believe there is already an option to reduce password input, a little tick box that says "Remember my password for purchases", although this may expire after each session.
Developers would never agree to a "sale" section. The idea of most app store sales is to climb the ratings in a short period of time, then revert to the original price once the app is in a good position. Therefore having a sale section or notifier built -in would cause too much loss for the developer, and may possibly negate the actual motivation behind putting it on sale.
The open an expensive boutique section is also flawed, it'd be fairly pointless, you CAN already sort by price (but you do have to go into the 'browse' section, which is slightly annoying)
The comment on needing to verify your device is not too bad, but any developer worth their salt always states if the application will only work on a certain device in the app description. And if you're not reading the description before you buy, well you probably need to rethink the way you buy your apps imo.
srsly dvice. moar research pls.
By Charlie White at 2:49 PM ON 10/05/09
@monster: Thanks for your comments. Yes, that "customers also bought" feature is available on the desktop version of the app store, but we want to see that on the iPhone/iPod Touch version, from which we buy almost all our apps. I've clarified that in the text.
And yes, you can sort by price on the desk-bound iTunes store, but not for all the apps -- just within the categories. And you can't do this at all from the iPhone or iPod Touch. We'd like to see a store-wide Sort by Price on both the iTunes desktop and from within the devices.
By Nick at 11:49 PM ON 10/05/09
As you say yourself in (5), some developers just spam their apps. This seems to make (10) unfeasible.
The new "augmented reality" apps such as Star Walk and the Across Air range really deserve their own space too. I suggest this stuff will have a bigger impact on our lives than the PC. We shouldn't be selling it off the same platform as puerile game no. 3,438,971
By OurielOhayon at 2:02 AM ON 10/06/09
The iTunes is not good enough for discovering apps, as you pointed. We believe your social graph is probably one of the best way to solve that (see what happens in real life with iphone owners).
This is why we created http://appsfire.com so you can see the apps of your friends (eg with our VIPs http://appsfire.com/VIPs )
By r4 revolution for ds at 9:30 AM ON 10/06/09
I wish Palm would create a more elegant solution for their users though (like RIM have). It doesn't scream 'quality workmanship' to me when they have to use an underhand tactic like falsely reporting to be an iPod just to get the device syncing. What else have they bodged?
By Ale at 3:01 AM ON 10/08/09
True, iTunes on Windows is slow as an old dog. Please make it better, is a very bad port imho.
By Bewildered at 8:23 AM ON 10/08/09
RE: 12. Hire more than 40 reviewers.
Look, there are merits to having a review team, and an app store. Many, like joint marketing, and boy can Apple market; however, you remember Palm? Yeah, I know they are still around, and now with the Palm Pre, its got potential. Long story short, I could go on line and find a Palm app anywhere. Did I run the risk of the app crashing my system, or malware; absolutely; however I was a reset and a sync away, and imagine initially if they, Palm OS, had an app store as a part of the OS, and allow the deployment through alternate sources, like other web sites?
Personally, I hope they do both, help those app team guys out, and allow not just single channel distribution for sole developers. Hey, the innovation may just increase, as well as the popularity of the brand and the device.
By pyxl8r at 9:45 AM ON 10/08/09
13. Expand the Categories into Subcategories, especially in the Music section, which has been swamped recently by many MANY vanity apps by famous and not-so-famous bands. There are many of us that are interested in music MAKING apps (synths, sequencers, recorders), but now we have to wade through hundreds of band fan apps now.
14. Separate what's NEW from what's only UPDATED. I think some developers realize that an incremental update will bump them to the top of What's New in their Category.
Obviously (and you touched on this) SEARCH has to be made a LOT easier to deal with. With 70,000 apps, we customers are drowning in choices with only a few filters available to find what we might be interested in!
By CABridges at 10:20 AM ON 10/08/09
Big yes on subcategories, or better searching filters. Impossible to search for an ebook reading app, for example, without swimming through hundreds of standalone ebooks.
By Sick of SyFy at 3:06 PM ON 10/08/09
Why is it that the only time this absurd blog mentions Apple products it's with painfully obvious bias and a highly critical angle??? Wanna critique something usefully? Go after an absurd and tacky pseudo-network that's more interested in remarketing it's name than it is acquiring decent entertainment and upping the level of discourse. Puh-thetic!
By Random at 10:22 PM ON 11/03/09
@7 If I'm not mistaken, iTunes is meant to be worse on Windows. More of a "get a mac" thing.
Also I agree with "Sick of SyFy"! Your ALWAYS negative about apple products. Their commecials, app store, how they DON'T have this or that, all negative.
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@7 If I'm not mistaken, iTunes is meant to be worse on Windows. More of a "get a mac" thing. Also I agree with "Si...More »