App Store Bringing Dead Apps Back To Life?
December 27, 2008 by Ryan Ray
The app store is something we blog about all the time, not only here at iPhonenuts.com, but millions of other blogs talk about the app store time and time again. Today is no different, ha. The app store has been a gold mine for TONS of developers, not to mention a great place for me to find things to blog about and review. I believe the app store is well past it’s 100,000th app by now and probably going to break a million in no time. Needless to say, the app store and the policies that follow have been giving countless people, developers and normal folks, headaches since it’s inception.
One thing I like about the app store is that it’s always evolving. Apple knew it couldn’t possibly foresee all the issues that would arise, and does it’s best at addressing the issues brought to it’s attention. Mainly we’ve all seen the issues us consumers brought fixed very promptly. For that Apple get’s a big high five from me. The first issue with the app store came from certain developers naming their apps in such ways that they would be listed first. Such as adding an underscore _, or number 1, to the beginning of your app. This would automatically list you high up in the store. Apple quickly took care of that.
Soon after there were complaints coming from developers about the policy, and how random it seemed that Apple would deny certain apps, but allow others that had the same functionality. Such was the case with a certain podcasting app. It would let you download the popular podcast Diggnation over the air and onto your phone. But when one app was denied existence the developer spoke out on this injustice. His app was denied because it provided functionality that the iPhone already had. That was the ability to download podcasts straight to your iPhone. I believe shortly after this was all fixed and everyone went home happy.
Secondly there was the issue of developers wanting to send promo versions of apps to people. The only way that existed at that time was for the developer to pony up the money and send a iTunes credit for the price of the app. He’d have to send this to bloggers and to the press if he wanted his app reviewed. Just imagine if your app was priced at 9.99 and you had to send it to atleast 200 bloggers and 300 journalist. Pretty costly just after one version of the app, beware of publishing new version. Again Apple took care of this and now allows developers to send promo codes to bloggers and the such. Something I’m still waiting on you developers to do! Haha, wink wink say no more.
Finally we arrive at today’s biggest issue developers were having with the app store. It’s quite the ironic story as well, it goes like this. Apple was starting more and more to deny apps that provided little or no functionality in ways that Apple deemed fit. The poster child of this case is an app called iFart. Apparently at first Apple was not allowing any app like this in their pretentious app store. Nobody would want to buy an app that turns your iPhone into a fart machine. Apparently though, Apple was WRONG! iFart has been, and currently is, the top paid app in the app store.
This just goes to show that Apple is listening to developers and to us, it’s loyal fans. When we start to scream and kick about something we want, it seems Apple will revise itself and give it to us. Now, are there any other issues that you see with the app store that Apple hasn’t fixed yet? Voice your opinion here and sooner than you know it Apple will fix the issue.
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