“The difference in quality and usefulness amongst the free iPhone apps is staggering; a few are basically drawings with affiliate links.”
Third party applications are the future, the Internet seems to agree. As closed systems become a thing of the past, more and more technology services turn to eager third-party developers to craft new and unique applications, interfaces, and utilities in order to better the user experience.
Unfortunately, when the tools for application creation are available to any Manny, Moe, or Jack, an enormous quality discrepancy is almost guaranteed. As Merlin Mann correctly intuits, Apple’s new iPhone and iPod Touch Application Store is becoming one such instance of this discrepancy.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a problem of this caliber, though: it’s easy to draw a comparison between Apple’s current directory woes and those of the social networking giant Facebook.
Facebook: Applications gone sour
When Facebook announced its third party application platform, both developers and users rejoiced. It didn’t take long, though, for Facebook’s application directory to get cluttered with spammy, poorly designed, and unusable apps. In the disarray that followed, users seemed to take one of three paths: eschew Facebook applications entirely, stick to a chosen one or two (such as the late Scrabulous), or dive helter-skelter into the application ball pit, drowning other friends in a frenzy of SuperPokes, vampire bites, and booze mailings.
Here’s the problem, though: if Facebook had managed to erect an intuitive and useable application directory, it would have been much easier to separate the well-constructed apps from the chaff. Instead, users are forced to navigate fuzzy-math categories such as “Most Active Users,” “Most Activity,” and “Newest” in order to discover useful applications. As a result, many well-intentioned apps sunk to the bottom, never to return, while uselessness like “Friends for Sale” has continued to thrive.
The iTunes Application Store: Like Facebook, but worse
Take everything negative about Facebook’s application directory and you’ve got a good framework with which to describe the new iTunes Application Directory, recently released with the 2.0 Firmware Upgrade. First off, the App Store is structured like the rest of the iTunes Music Store– acceptably suitable for music downloads, perhaps, but not so much so for software.
iTunes attempts to make its applications searchable via a number of different functions, including “New,” “What’s Hot,” “Staff Favorites,” and “Top Apps” categories. These categories aren’t as useful as they sound, though, as the New segment doesn’t seem to have much to do with chronological order, What’s Hot remains completely inscrutable, and Staff Favorites strikes me as redundant. Top Apps, a category that exists for both free and paid apps, is the store’s only saving grace: I am extremely unlikely to try one unless it ranks in the Top 50.
Which brings about another concern: say an app developer really botches the first iteration of his application and gets hundreds of negative rankings in the first few weeks it’s available. Even if there’s a complete 180 and the app becomes one of the most useful available for iPhone or Touch, there’s no way the project can bounce back from its previous failure; the developer would be better off releasing under another name. This just doesn’t make sense, but yet, the prospect of having a once-poor application buried in an application graveyard isn’t the dream of any developer.
Add money and it really gets messy
The iTunes application store has one more thing that Facebook does not: the integration of real-world currency. If people get upset over poor free applications, I can barely imagine the outrage over an expensive and poorly-designed application. Unfortunately, the community will never know about such bad deals until someone takes the plunge, purchases the app, and is upset enough to vocalize his or her disappointment.
A solution?
It seems extremely unlikely that Facebook or iTunes will redesign their application directories anytime soon. Instead, I think it’s up to another third party group– bloggers, journalists, product testers, and similar individuals– to rigorously test new applications and publish the results in an accessible, searchable, and highly-functional database of some sort. I’m surprised to see that no such database seems to exist yet, short of shoddy advertisement-ridden pages; there seems to be much more documentation on illegal applications (for hacked iPhones) than the new legit ones.
So I suppose that’s the call to action: we need a trustworthy application directory, and it’s unlikely that iTunes has one planned. It’s up to us to make it happen.
If you enjoyed this post, consider subscribing to the blog! I always love engaging with readers both new and old.
- What the iPhone Application Store tells us about Twitter However, even though the Twitterati continue to sing its praises, some simple insights provided by the new iPhone Application Store...
- Five iPhone applications that let me down The iPhone Application Store is pretty groundbreaking in its design, integration, and offerings. Regrettably, however, is that the apps available...
- Brightkite iPhone interface is stunning All iPhone web applications should look and function like Brightkite's. Out of all the apps I've encountered, i.brightkite.com is the...
{ 1 trackback }
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Odd that the third-party alternatives to apps on the iPhone (Cydia and Installer.app) DID seem to get it right. They not only had categories, but a search, featured apps, and newest (chronologically). You’re right though, third-party is the wave of the future because SOMEBODY out there always has a better idea.
TJ, I never got to use Cydia but did play around with Installer.app, and you’re absolutely right, now that I think of it– it was a LOT easier to see what applications were relevant to me.
Fortunately, it’s clear that pre-2.0 jailbreak development has had an enormous impact on the legitimate applications available today. Let’s hope this experience is transferred onto things like app directories, too.
Odd that the third-party alternatives to apps on the iPhone (Cydia and Installer.app) DID seem to get it right. They not only had categories, but a search, featured apps, and newest (chronologically). You’re right though, third-party is the wave of the future because SOMEBODY out there always has a better idea.
TJ, I never got to use Cydia but did play around with Installer.app, and you’re absolutely right, now that I think of it– it was a LOT easier to see what applications were relevant to me.
Fortunately, it’s clear that pre-2.0 jailbreak development has had an enormous impact on the legitimate applications available today. Let’s hope this experience is transferred onto things like app directories, too.