Another flaw to the app store is the rating system. When an app is updated with a new version the star rating begins all over again. You might have had 5 stars to begin with but with the new version of the app, one bad review and all that shows in the app store (especially on the iPhone app store) is the average of the new version rating. This really needs a major revisit. @johnflurry
sort revenue
· 4 months ago
They should sort apps by revenue than downloads. That is downloads multiplied by price. So 10$ app will get better ranking
JohnAtkinson
· 4 months ago
Well put Ben. hopefully they will address it before the devs of higher end apps move to other platforms, or go out of business.
Another issue with ratings: when users delete an app, they are prompted to rate the app at that time - don't you suppose this skews the ratings?
Giada Cesareo
· 4 months ago
a. No better app store than the one that's the result of word of mouth. b. Power users that review and share their best knowledge on specific categories or types of apps need to be rewarded for their contribution to the community. Far now Apps seem to dictate trends but this is already being reverted by the new generation of "prosumers" who will let developers know what apps they want them to develop. This is already happening in smaller niches as for medical applications, ask a Doctor with an iPhone and he/she will probably tell you what's the best app for their needs and most probably they have already networked about it among colleagues and even students. There's an underground system of information about apps, it just needs to be taken to the surface and out of its niche communication channels. Rewarding power users who honestly and freely share their knowledge and experiences on applications doesn't mean you have to pay them in cash! Would you trust a review that's been paid to be written? What these super value users need to know is how important their contribution is and they also need to be motivated to keep on sharing it with more and more users. If I had to buy an expensive app or an application that's supposed to help me improve my business or my skills in medicine, I would trust a friends/colleague advice much better then any other kind of ranking. That's what I am working on :)
update: I am sorry John, I didn't mean to post this as a reply at yours but just as a comment on the main thread. Best, G
David Robins
· 4 months ago
It is the volume that helps apple to make more money. A $1 app download 1 million times generate $1Million. A $100 app downloaded twice generates $200...
jbond
· 4 months ago
The Apple App store is a classic Apple walled garden. If it had been done in a web 2 style we could be crowdsourcing, mashing, investigating and mixing it up ourselves.
But then that's not the Apple way, right?
Zunguri
· 4 months ago
Casual apps match casual browsing behavior. Those apps damn well better have a casual price too! I watch kids browsing apps, buying, and testing. I hear their parents lament the repeated purchases and quickly came to realize the casual purchase model as some real advantages. Those more expensive apps? Let them BUY placement for their app.
Jens
· 4 months ago
Why rank according to:
Volume * Price = Total Umpf
That would make sense for everyone...
Hari Seldon
· 4 months ago
I don't understand the problem with the Tim Cook's answer
"We realize there’s opportunity there for further improvement and are working on that."
Seems reasonable to me, I keep reading articles about how bad the app store is, how hard it is to find things etc, as someone who has bought over 200 apps I disagree. Of course If you are simply putting your app in the store and sitting back to wait for sales, you probably need to re-examine your strategy. Most of my apps were bought as a result of reading a review, seeing an ad etc, the app store does not mean that you don't have to market your app.
tommytastic
· 4 months ago
we should be able to sort by rating - top apps currently sorts by downloads
Zo
· 4 months ago
First of all if Apple keeps beating their quarterly expectations then they're obviously having no problems with how their App store is working. And why would they change something that is working for them?
The App store is a pretty good economical model in my opinion and it's the purchaser that is determining the price of the majority of apps. So if that means people would rather be buying cheaper apps ranging from .99 to 2.99, then unfortunately the more expensive apps are going to have to change their models.
And I don't think there is a direct correlation with the amount of revenue an app makes to the quality of the app. Some of my best apps are 0.99 apps.
seanmacdhai
· 4 months ago
When everyone else is $1-$3, you are gonna stand out at $10 or $20. Buying apps is like Russian roulette... sometimes you get crap, which doesn't matter if you only paid $1... but does if you paid $10. I wonder if a $9.99 app would sell 10 more copies if it was $.99? ;)
We agree with this wholeheartedly. Here is our blog post on the subject as well as a link to our white paper on how to improve the App Store. Apple has done a great job so far in revolutionizing what is available on a mobile device. It needs to refocus its efforts on quality, not just sales (http://www.cohenresearchgroup.com/blog/post.cfm...).
Doug Petrosky
· 4 months ago
Sorry but I don't agree.
The app store should teach software developers something about pricing. I don't understand how people making good money can be so blind! Most computer software is over priced. That is not to say that developers are making too much money, but instead I'm saying that if they would drop their prices they would increase sales dramatically more than the per unit loss in revenue. There are a number of casual computer games that have been ported to the iPhone that have been very successful for the developers. But those same developers who sell their iPhone applications for $.99-$2.99 sell the identical computer game for $20 to $40 and they make more money on the iPhone applications. GET A FREAKING CLUE!
Software has an initial cost and no per unit costs. The AppStore should be a WakeUp Call that maybe prices have been way out of whack for far too long giving rise to piracy and reducing your companies brand recognition.
Let the free market move things along.
Remember! 3 months ago a developer of an iPhone Game had an installed base of some 20M devices. Today that has grown to 35M. So if a $.99 game came out last quarter and earned $100k. On average that same game could make almost $200k had it came out this quarter. And there is no end in sight! Stop lamenting the poor developer.
All that said I'd love to have many more search options. Including the current most popular by unit sales today, last week, last month. Maybe another option for top revenue for similar times. But give me the option to decide.
The app store does not need mechanisms to boost up more costly apps, in most cases cost is not synonymous with crap. There are plenty of bad apps that cost alot of money.
Doing something simply to boost costlier apps will not "fix the app store". That will destroy the app store. If you were to use the app store, and simply find these high priced apps then the app store would be dead. Period.
Fix the review system, open up the submission process, yes, price fixing no.
I'm not sure how well Dopplerpad is doing, but since it appears competitive apps cost $1.99 or 0.99 cents.. do you think $9.99 is fair? When did price fixing become good for consumers?
There's already a minimum advertised price. It's 0.99 cents. Deal with it.
metapede
· 4 months ago
The reality is there are lots of ways the "important" apps get discovered and promoted. A review on Mashable of an app like DopplerPad is probably worth a lot more than any improvement Apple could make to the App Store rankings.
That said, the iTunes App Store certainly leaves a lot to be desired. If I do a search in the iTunes App Store for, say, "mortgage calculator" I see that there are multiple pages of apps. For each app, you see only its name, the developer's name and a price. There is no sales data (how many have sold; the app's relative rank, etc.), or avg rating, or info about how recently the app was added. In short, there is no way to differentiate these apps from one another without clicking each of them, one at a time. You can't even see how many apps are in the search results.
For a company that gets so many things right, they get some basic stuff really wrong. Of course, they don't have much of a commercial incentive to fix it.
Matt
· 3 months ago
The back and forth and utter discontent on this blog is astonishing. You people should know by now that the only way to make your iPhone its most productive is to remove the "barricades" that Apple has surrounded it with. If your're that unhappy with the Appstore then "free" your phone and discover the more appealing alternatives that exist for your downloading needs. Imagine a source containing every app you could possible imagine all virtually free. Where Apple no longer dictates what your phone is capable of, but rather you do. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. I've seen it... :)
Mollerade
· 3 months ago
Categorization should take a book from mininova, and other torrent sites. Check the table structures and sorting options, they are among the fastest and most abundant in options, that I've ever seen. If Apple can make it easy for beginners and provide functionality for its pro users. Its already done it in at least one app, the calculator. If they don't do something about this soon they are going to see developers leave.
Richard Lawler
· 3 months ago
I'm afraid this is fundamentally not correct. The App Store "most popular" and "Top Paid" apps lists DO reflect price. Of course, Apple does not release the formulas they use, but I'm sure the various iPhone analytics companies know those formulas exactly because they have access to sales numbers for multiple individual apps as well as those App Store rankings.
The problems with the App Store are far more subtle than this misinformed allegation that the App Store charts don't reflect price.
All Comments
needs a major revisit.
@johnflurry
Another issue with ratings: when users delete an app, they are prompted to rate the app at that time - don't you suppose this skews the ratings?
b. Power users that review and share their best knowledge on specific categories or types of apps need to be rewarded for their contribution to the community.
Far now Apps seem to dictate trends but this is already being reverted by the new generation of "prosumers" who will let developers know what apps they want them to develop. This is already happening in smaller niches as for medical applications, ask a Doctor with an iPhone and he/she will probably tell you what's the best app for their needs and most probably they have already networked about it among colleagues and even students. There's an underground system of information about apps, it just needs to be taken to the surface and out of its niche communication channels.
Rewarding power users who honestly and freely share their knowledge and experiences on applications doesn't mean you have to pay them in cash! Would you trust a review that's been paid to be written? What these super value users need to know is how important their contribution is and they also need to be motivated to keep on sharing it with more and more users.
If I had to buy an expensive app or an application that's supposed to help me improve my business or my skills in medicine, I would trust a friends/colleague advice much better then any other kind of ranking.
That's what I am working on :)
update: I am sorry John, I didn't mean to post this as a reply at yours but just as a comment on the main thread.
Best,
G
But then that's not the Apple way, right?
Volume * Price = Total Umpf
That would make sense for everyone...
"We realize there’s opportunity there for further improvement and are working on that."
Seems reasonable to me, I keep reading articles about how bad the app store is, how hard it is to find things etc, as someone who has bought over 200 apps I disagree. Of course If you are simply putting your app in the store and sitting back to wait for sales, you probably need to re-examine your strategy. Most of my apps were bought as a result of reading a review, seeing an ad etc, the app store does not mean that you don't have to market your app.
The App store is a pretty good economical model in my opinion and it's the purchaser that is determining the price of the majority of apps. So if that means people would rather be buying cheaper apps ranging from .99 to 2.99, then unfortunately the more expensive apps are going to have to change their models.
And I don't think there is a direct correlation with the amount of revenue an app makes to the quality of the app. Some of my best apps are 0.99 apps.
The app store should teach software developers something about pricing. I don't understand how people making good money can be so blind! Most computer software is over priced. That is not to say that developers are making too much money, but instead I'm saying that if they would drop their prices they would increase sales dramatically more than the per unit loss in revenue. There are a number of casual computer games that have been ported to the iPhone that have been very successful for the developers. But those same developers who sell their iPhone applications for $.99-$2.99 sell the identical computer game for $20 to $40 and they make more money on the iPhone applications. GET A FREAKING CLUE!
Software has an initial cost and no per unit costs. The AppStore should be a WakeUp Call that maybe prices have been way out of whack for far too long giving rise to piracy and reducing your companies brand recognition.
Let the free market move things along.
Remember! 3 months ago a developer of an iPhone Game had an installed base of some 20M devices. Today that has grown to 35M. So if a $.99 game came out last quarter and earned $100k. On average that same game could make almost $200k had it came out this quarter. And there is no end in sight! Stop lamenting the poor developer.
All that said I'd love to have many more search options. Including the current most popular by unit sales today, last week, last month. Maybe another option for top revenue for similar times. But give me the option to decide.
http://mashable.com/2008/07/15/app-store-prices/
http://mashable.com/2008/08/06/apple-app-store-...
The app store does not need mechanisms to boost up more costly apps, in most cases cost is not synonymous with crap. There are plenty of bad apps that cost alot of money.
Doing something simply to boost costlier apps will not "fix the app store". That will destroy the app store. If you were to use the app store, and simply find these high priced apps then the app store would be dead. Period.
Fix the review system, open up the submission process, yes, price fixing no.
I'm not sure how well Dopplerpad is doing, but since it appears competitive apps cost $1.99 or 0.99 cents.. do you think $9.99 is fair? When did price fixing become good for consumers?
There's already a minimum advertised price. It's 0.99 cents. Deal with it.
That said, the iTunes App Store certainly leaves a lot to be desired. If I do a search in the iTunes App Store for, say, "mortgage calculator" I see that there are multiple pages of apps. For each app, you see only its name, the developer's name and a price. There is no sales data (how many have sold; the app's relative rank, etc.), or avg rating, or info about how recently the app was added. In short, there is no way to differentiate these apps from one another without clicking each of them, one at a time. You can't even see how many apps are in the search results.
For a company that gets so many things right, they get some basic stuff really wrong. Of course, they don't have much of a commercial incentive to fix it.
The problems with the App Store are far more subtle than this misinformed allegation that the App Store charts don't reflect price.