Many mobile Apps will eventually be found the same way Windows Apps are today - In other words, through trusted third parties.
The equivalent of download.com, or sourceforge, may be appropriate for some mobile apps.
But the elephant in the room is Amazon.
More recently, I've downloaded Symbian and Java apps onto my Nokia.
Apple's App Store's model is an exception to the historical distribution.
Right now everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. But there's nothing special about mobile-apps. They're still a commodity.
Apple can probably keep the iPhone locked down and continue it's app store...but ultimately other companies benefit more from differentiation than from "me too."
But even Apple is showing the strains of deviation from their core competency.
Of course, I could be wrong and Amazon will continue to just sell books.
Click on the Apple when the focus is on Finder, and Right under Software Update is "Mac OS X Software", which directs to http://www.apple.com/downloads/- essentially the App Store for desktops. It doesn't go through the wretched iTunes interface, though, and I don't believe applications are for sale, only free download.
I'm sure a paid download and sales model is in the works, or of course they've at least thought of it.
here's why (snark): "Apps that only work offline.." That's not so easy, and neither is the myriad of other attributes of any particular app. Right now tags and the title of the app contribute to the app search criteria (not the description).
They're suggesting that every app (including 250,000 existing) fill out a survey on the specifics of what it does so that people can search via that attribute? This is their simple solution to the problem?
The first is that Apple is dissuading amateur developers by rejecting 'fart apps', in the metaphorical sense of instituting a qualitative standard. The App Store is flooded with mass-produced low-quality low-demand junk apps so that a coding sweatshop in east Asia can make a few bucks per app, times however many thousands they churn out. THEY are who will be rejected, rather than someone with a good, novel, new, or beneficial idea.
Second is the thought that Google will solve the App Store's search and filtering issues. Has the author of this article used the Android Market? For being backed by the pinnacle of search providers, the Android Market's search and filtering capabilities are abysmal, and are actually outdone by small-time independent groups like AppBrain.
Apple DOES have enough fart apps. Android does too. A human element needs to be involved in the screening process in a qualitative sense. Why are there hundreds, if not thousands, of single-use "sexy photo jigsaw puzzle" apps? What about "list of quotes" apps? The App Store is littered with garbage, and for the greater good, maybe there will be a few casualties, but that's the price of strengthening an emerging marketplace.
If AppBrain or similar takes off, Google can just buy them and roll it into Android - an easy win for them. By allowing others to come up with these systems, Google are effectively allowing Natural Selection to produce the best App search system.
But if you think about it, there is little in common between web search and app search. App searching really boils down to correct descriptions and quality reviews. You aren't just trying to find AN app, you are trying to find a good app. How do you do that without links? Reviews can be gamed, ratings can be gamed. The only thing that is objective are sales/downloads. Which means blockbusters rise to the top and new apps are buried. It isn't an easy problem.
Do you imagine it staying this way or eventually opening up? The reason I'm asking are the parallels made w.r.t. the web in general. There's plenty of garbage out there too but I don't think anyone would argue that a 'curated' web would be better. I see the app store in the same light.
If Apple want to check for malicious/incompetent code etc I can get behind that but if I want to put another fart app out there, why shouldn't I be able to? I doubt anyone would find it (or care) but getting hobby projects out into the open is part of the learning process to making something better next time.
This sums up my thoughts on the issue. Does anyone have a good reason why curation works better than search for mobile apps, but the opposite situation holds for web apps?
Couldn't Google give every app on the marketplace a website and just use the regular PageRank as part of App search? I have always felt like the Android app discovery process should start at google.com, and I think links from friends and online forums would immediately become the most common way to find good apps. Why pay people to do what the web could do for you?
Also, I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be possible for someone to create a "better" (louder / faster / more sophomoric) fart app than what already exists on the App store. Is Apple ceding those farts to Android? Or would they make an exception for a really good fart App?
Web content is (relatively) static and indexable. It's essentially all "media".
Applications are not. Developing an algorithm that can deduce what an application does so it can be searched for is essentially a version of the halting problem, and even approximation pretty much requires "strong AI" to get even remotely close on all applications.
Thus, application directories must include a form for the developer to fill out to be searchable at all. Allowing the developers alone to control this means false information is too easy to spread, so curating steps in to weed out as much as possible.
As to ranking, yeah. A PageRank clone makes sense.
Apple does need a good search so I can find the apps I want. (I think this is usually the case. Being unable to find an app hasn't been a problem.) But having a good search is a different question than "should apps be filtered for buggy, malicious, or useless apps?"
Gets on his iPhone, downloads a fart app.
Yes.
>Amateur Developers: Apple Says Stay Away
No. Their goal is polished applications. You can develop and experiment without putting it in the app store; they're just asking that you complete it and make it worthwhile. A fart app isn't even new-to-programming amateur level, it's "follow any one of dozens of tutorials to make your own without needing to learn a single thing" level.
Amateurs can make polished, sale-worthy applications - I've seen quite a few first-app-developers make fantastic programs. Apple is asking them to do so, rather than attempting to submit the result of a tutorial with a different background color.
The root challenge of app stores is that they break the invisible hand(s) that rule the marketplace, which consumers and retailers all take for granted as an important source of guidance and information. A market flooded with unlimited supplies of unlimited competitors is a wild west of competition. This is great. But, it's also terrible. As long as supplies of products are unlimited and free to stock because retail space is also limitless there are no motives for the retailer to prune it's shelves of unpopular duplicate products.
I think that Apple will continue to allow it's AppStore to grow and for duplicate applications to be produced, but when the competition with Android starts to get fierce they will begin to prune the AppStore of low quality applications. Non-selling apps, particularly with low ratings, will be cut... and insanely great search that can tell you which fart app of the 30 available is the best one won't be so important anymore because the one fart app that exists in the store will be so great it'll make your eyes water.
The trick, of course, is determining how upstarts can compete with more established applications within a problem space. But, that's a discussion for next time.
Google initially did the same, but simplified the interface a bit. Now, there is just 1 box and 2 buttons, and a lot of those options (like + for requiring a keyword) don't even work the same. (It now seems to give the word higher weight, but not require it.)
I agree that letting people know why things appear where they do in the list is a good idea, and maybe even change the sort order. But more options just means more frustration and there's a breaking point.
I think the author is way underestimating the problem though.
I would imagine that the expansion of Ping into the app realm will do more for small developers than some filtering that will inevitably serve big. deep pocketed companies.
By publicly claiming you only accept quality apps, people will try harder and self filter.
For example, many companies have job posting only for engineers graduated from a top university with honors. But in practice they hire a much broader spectrum.
Yes, but nobody is going to buy a different phone to get a fart app.
To such a sudden flood of flame-baiting.
They that have written this post are honourable:
What private griefs they have, alas, I know not,
That made them do it: they are wise and honourable,
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.
I come not, devs, to steal away your hearts:
I am no web guru, as Sarah is;
But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man,
That "get" the Walled Garden; and that they know full well
That gave me public leave to speak of them:
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,
To stir devs' blood: I only speak right on;
I tell you that which you yourselves do know;
Show you Apple's app sales, tall tall stack'd bills
And bid them speak for me: but were I Sarah,
And Sarah user Towle_, there were a user Towle_
Would alter your thinking and expose the methods
To all the madness of Apple that should move
The foes of the iPhone to rise and applaud it.
