1) Ditto on the extra app. Screen space is a premium already for those of is with more than 11 pages of apps. 2) Same functionality could exist as another tab in App Store already. 3) Seems like an excuse for apple to ask for more percentage of sale to be included in the Premium store. 4) Almost completely useless to me - I don't buy apps on my iPod if I can help it.
Touch arcade doesn't cover all the good game, just a few of them. Also not every iPhone/iPod touch user go to touch arcade you know (no offense to T.A.)
Can I ask for 26 instead? As it is, I wish I could turn off some of the default apps the way you can turn off Nike+iPod. I don't use Stocks, I have a better weather app, I don't have a mic for Sound Recorder...
And how would "Premium" be any different? You described it as "the best:" by who's yardstick? As pointed out by many already in this thread, this concept doesn't make much marketing sense.
...how is Apple supposed to make profit off this? If anything they make less money by splitting up the app store, because the majority of paying customers will focus on less apps. I've never really understood why so many devs are concerned with spam, or low quality apps. It isn't destroying your sales at all. If your app isn't selling & isn't in the top 100 of it's specific category, it's because you didn't make an appealing enough app. All in all, bad idea, won't happen.
I agree. I just don't see any reason Apple would want to create such a Premium section or store. You don't see a Premium Music store or a Premium Movies store. Sure there are higher quality encodings of music or movies that cost more, but that is not the same thing as basing a division on the "quality" of the music, movies or apps.
You didn't read my first post don't you? The idea is to have a better quality chart, to force dev to make good stuff. The Premium will be the same as the App Store, the difference is that, you will NOT have all the spam/crap/clones app on the new released section, just good new stuff. And the marketing sense is also to increase the price and to force major dev studio to develop on the iPhone. Many studios won't because of the actual App Store. To risky. That's a true story, just read the news.
I agree that any ideas for "improving" the AppStore that don't have an obvious benefit to Apple probably aren't worth discussing. And I agree that splitting the AppStore doesn't make much sense. But to say that spam doesn't affect developers and consumers is silly. While crap does eventually "sink to the bottom" it has at least the following effects each time it's introduced: - pushes apps off the crowded new release lists even quicker into invisibility. If your release happens just before a wave of 24 spam apps gets dumped into the AppStore (something not under your control), good luck getting any precious initial traction. - spam apps are often deliberately misfiled into wrong categories, exacerbating the above - spam apps clutter search results, making it harder for users to find unranked apps Likewise, the idea that all apps in top lists are there because the're clearly the most appealing in their category is a commonly held and self-fufilling notion. Many apps preserve their ranks not because of their inherent quality, but because of their visibility. There are many apps that if moved arbitrarily moved up/down the charts would end up sliding to a completely different equillibrium point. I would bet my house that if the appstore rankings were reset or completely randomized for a week, then went back to the normal ranking algorithms, that they'd look completely different after things settled back down.
Actually, those spam apps do affect your sales. One major way people learn about new apps is the New Releases section. When your new, polished & fun app gets pushed out of visibility on its first day by 20 "a Red Dice", "a Blue Peg", "a Dice Match" types of complete garbage apps, it will definitely affect your sales. There are some games that I consider to be very low quality in the Top 100 charts of most categories (not naming names). I have seen many much more interesting and appealing apps that, for whatever reason, just didn't find success. I think it has much more to do with marketing and visibility than whether your app was appealing.
Of course they are not the same market. From an App Store point of view though, the differences don't matter. They are both digital products available for download with varying levels of quality across a collection of genres/categories. Apple hasn't seen a reason to split the music or movies side based on perceived quality, and I don't believe they will do anything like that for apps.
Your first point makes sense to a degree, though, my last app didn't show up on the release date until 48 hours after (which by then it was a couple pages down) but managed to sell 170 the first night and 256 the second night (because it moved onto the top 100). Additionally, I had an app go onto the release date list right on schedule, stay there for some time and after all that, sold very few copies. This proves that release date list exposure is not necessary for initial sales, and should not be a major consideration in the success of your app. Also, I'm not sure who you've been talking to, but the only times I've ever used the search tab to buy an app is if I already know the app I'm looking for. Never have I, or anyone I know, found random apps through the search engine. I'm sure it happens, but I think the occurrence is overestimated by devs. Edit: fyi, search rankings are also based on popularity. AKA spam apps fall to the bottom yet again. This is true, I've talked about the "vacuum effect" of the top 100 lists before, whatever manages to get to the top 100 list's exposure will get stuck there. This theory is botched if it uses a different ranking algorithm. Which is exactly why the app store doesn't "randomize apps". If it did, I don't think the lists would eventually make their way back to their original placings, but I can tell you it would be similar, probably more similar than you'd imagine.
I've used search to buy apps that I didn't know about specifically before, like when I wanted a good notes app). As you suggest though, I've never searched for a game this way. If I search for a game, I already know which one I am looking for and just want to find the page for it. From what I've heard from my friends they do it too. I think keywords and search are much more important for apps than for games because of this.
Search can be useful for games when you're looking for a subtype of game (i.e. "boxing") and don't want to browse through a generic sports category. Search can also be useful when nostalgically looking for a particular old game that may or may not have a port in the AppStore. And search provides visibility to similar-titled games even when you're looking for something specific. It goes without saying that being featured and/or in a top list yields MUCH MUCH more visibility. But visibility through search results is still significant, and one of the reasons why Apple has support for developer-assigned keywords.
Not saying it has zero influence for games, just much less than with apps in my opinion. The name search I agree with, and as I said, that is something I do often. However, I never suddenly say to myself "I feel like finding a boxing/racing/flying game for the iPhone." Maybe that's just me.
Reply to the thread starter: So whenever there are issues with the "currently best" appstore a new one should open? Nonsense. This reminds me of those who are hacking further their spagetti-code instead of looking for some generic approach. Apple will come up with a solution - even if this might take some time.
This doesn't really prove anything. Perhaps one app was more appealing to more people than the other. Perhaps, if the apps were reversed, the first one you mentioned would have sold 10 times more than it did when not on the new releases list. Coming up with a good app idea, executing it well, and marketing it as best you can will yield the best results, so I will agree that "new releases" is probably a very small factor in the long-term equation. I guess I'll find out for myself soon enough.
So you're essentially asking for a list especially for the really "good" new apps to come along, and single them out for extra exposure. …Isn't this just New and Noteworthy?
