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Digital Contrarian: the iTunes App Store
This is the first in a regular series called “Digital Contrarian,” in which we’ll look at widely-used online services, tech products and electronic entertainment and talk about the ways they might be improved.
Let us first praise the wonder that is the iTunes App Store. Cell phones used to be closed-off platforms tightly controlled by the wireless companies.
They still are, but at least the software you use on cells like the iPhone, BlackBerry or Android G1 can be supplemented with downloadable applications (“apps”), many of them free.
It’s brought garage developers and plenty of others into the fold, giving you more options on how you use your phone, bringing your mobile ever closer to the power of a laptop or desktop computer. And there are so many apps. On the iTunes App Store there are currently more than 56,500 apps; when the iPhone debuted two years ago, there were just more than 500. The App Store (and the fledgling, but growing equivalents for BlackBerry, Android and Palm’s new Pré phone) are great.
However … they’re not perfect. As Apple’s store proves, sometimes having a great variety of apps for a very good phone does not come without problems. Here are five things that drive us crazy about the iTunes App Store:
1. Finding stuff: Anyone who has tried to find an App without knowing the exact name or simply by browsing through 56,500 options knows that Apple’s approach to search need work. You can find Apps through iTunes, on your iPhone or iPod Touch and on Apple’s Web page for the App Store, which makes a go of categories like “Apps for Working Out” and “Apps for Managing Money.” But otherwise, the categories are too generic (“Lifestyle,” “Reference”) are too generic and there are so many apps in every category that it’s hard to figure out what to download. Search is also flaky. Check out what happens when you type in productivity guru David Allen’s name to try to find to-do list applications associated with his popular “Getting Things Done”:
NBA apps? “Babelgum?” (That one’s an App that plays Web videos.) No. If you’re going to wade through so many apps, iTunes needs far better ways to search.
2. Ratings are inconsistent: The five-star rating system should be a good resource to separate the bad apps from the ones worth buying or downloading. Unfortunately, good apps often get bad ratings that don’t go away even if the app is improved by subsequent updates. It’s tough to tell who the reviewers are (there’s no accountability for writing bad reviews except for Apple’s annoying “Was this review helpful?” vote). Searching by top-rated apps often simply doesn’t bring up the best apps, especially the hidden gems that a lot of people haven’t found yet.
3. Some apps can’t be downloaded without a fast network: This has improved a bit, but many apps above a certain size can only be downloaded while on a 3G or Wi-Fi network. This is fine for owners of new iPhones, but I know when I used my first-generation iPhone, I would have been willing to wait for some apps or updates to download over the slower EDGE network. That option wasn’t available. 3G also isn’t ubiquitous. There should be an option to download an app whether you’re in the fast lane or not.
4. There’s no way to search by price or find bargains: One of the pleasant surprises of the App Store is how many publishers have promoted their wares by discounting them to 99 cents. I picked up the $5 game “Peggle” at that price and several others. But I wouldn’t have known about them if I’d only been looking around the App Store. Instead, I usually find out about sales like that through gadget blogs or special sites like 148apps’s list of discounts and sales. Besides offering an option to view free or pay apps, Apple has done little to help us find good deals. There should be an “On Sale” category in the App Store.
5. Updates are a pain: The more apps you download the more often you’ll be downloading updates every time the publisher of an application decides to release a new version. Sometimes it’s done to fix bugs, other times major new features are rolled out. It’s nice to see a list of things that are new or being fixed, but I imagine most people don’t care to go through the process of checking for updates, selecting which ones to update and entering their password to authorize the downloads. Why isn’t there a way to automatically download and apply updates? Not everyone would use that option, but for those who want the latest App updates, no questions asked, iTunes needs a way to automate that process.
How would you improve the App Store? Let us know in the comments.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Internet, Phones
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By Julie Gomoll
July 9, 2009 6:52 PM | Link to this
Another complaint about searching - trying to find a game that you know of that has a very simple name (Think "Go" and "Take") and your search is pretty much useless. You get apps (and songs, and movies, and podcasts) with that word in the title, with no weighting for an exact match.
And yes, updates are a pain. I'd like to be able to permanently get rid of apps I have no plans to use again, so don't want to update.
The app store also seems like the ideal place to let us rearrange the apps on our iPhone. Sync my settings, then let me view my screens and rearrange with drag and drop, then resync.