It seems to me that up-dates are becoming less and less. Is that a figment of my imagination? When I started buying games on the app store, it was fun to download the latest up-date. However, I now have 299 apps! (99% of which are games). There was a spell when all I seemed to be doing was downloading up-date after up-date which got really tedious. I almost felt obliged too, just because I had it. Then I decided to only download the up-dates for games I knew I would play again, and as such I have 94 up-dates sitting there untouched! But recently, I have noticed a decline in up-dates. My list of undownloaded up-dates has sat at 94 for some time now. I wonder why? I guess it could be any of these reasons: 1) These things come in waves. It's just a matter of time. 2) Devs are truly mending their ways and putting out games that don't need up-dates as much. 3) Devs are caring less about their games, and just give up the ghost after they have submitted version 1. 4) The devs are all sitting on their backsides eating pie! (Thanks LBG) 5) Apple are all sitting on their backsides eating pie! 6) The devs and Apple are too busy pondering about the possiblities of the apps with the 3.0 update and the new iPhone. (LBG's idea) So is this all in my head, or is there an element of truth about anything I have been wittering on about?
Yeah I thought that also. Infact, I was just about to make a thread on it until I saw this one. I haven't had an update about a week. The last one I had was for CJS. I thin the devs are too busy pondering about the possiblities of the apps with the 3.0 update and the new iPhone. Well, at least that is what I am hoping, although they are probably sitting on their backsides eating pie, but oh well, they will have to update their apps sometime or whey will start losing sales. (I have 246 apps on iTunes btw.)
I have 730 in my app-folder and d/l every update I get... I'm just that way. But yes, it seems that in the last few days fewer updates hit the appstore. I assume that either Apple is finally saturated and can't aprove those updates any more, or many apps are refused because of 3.0
but how can they have their pie, and eat it too? i think this 3.0 in app sale is going to be scary initially, as devs will abuse it, not know what to do with it, over use it, you buy a game for 5.99, but with the expansion packs it costs you 12.99...granted no one is forcing you to buy the expansion packs...i just hope the original game you shelled out 5.99 for, is complete. and worth 5.99 but yes, i have noticed a huge drop in app updates...well not huge..but steady decline over the last couple of months
Yeah I think it's all the devs dealing with the 3.0 compatibility requirement. Though honestly it didn't require a whole lot of changes to existing code. I do think apple has a ticking timebomb on their hands. Think of the staffing to approve roughly 8-10 new apps a day plus daily updates to an expanding library of 40k-50k apps. Nightmare.
The best thing you can do is read reviews and don't compulsively buy games, and you won't get screwed.
For me as a Dev. I guarantee you will get Hell-A-Lot of apps update after release of 3.0 As for me 3 apps update are now line up to appear after 3.0 released and 2 new apps are plan to released afterward. This due to Apple want us dev to re-update apps and make sure it work with 3.0 smoothly So that end my fact and theory.
One element is the time it takes for an update to go through approval nowadays. When it takes 8 days or so (at least) to get an update approved, it's worth holding off on updates until there's more in them. There's also the issue that updating your app resets the visible reviews now. If your app's not charting high, you could be left with the "We have not received enough ratings to display an average for the current version of this application" message at the top of your ratings for a while and this might have an effect on sales. The biggie for a lot of us of course is the imminent release of OS 3.0. As there's a good possibility we'll want to update our apps for 3.0 features, going through all the messing about to release a pre 3.0 update only to go through it again a week later for 3.0 is a little inefficient.
I'm a little nervous thinking about my 9 pages of apps and the several apps that may not work with 3.0.
Also, I have had some updates sitting waiting to be reviewed for almost a month now, so it is possible that Apple isn't approving updates as quickly as they used to. The may well be busy reviewing the updates that fix things for 3.0, or doing something else, it is hard to tell with Apple.
For those of you saying Apple has too much to do with 3.0, too many apps to approve, etc., wouldn't you think they would start to care more about the App Store now that it has become so big and successful? I mean personally, I would like to think that they would hire MORE app reviewers seeing as they now know that the app store is important because they really highlighted it during WWDC. I hope that wasn't horribly confusing, but that's what I think
Here's my prediction for most iPhone Devs (not all). First a lot of devs come up with what they think are the DLC which is crappy then charge us like say 5.99 for the best of the best when we only get one or two tracks. Everybody complains that they lied and demand their money back. Their apps review is now littered with 1 stars reviews. They either apologize and give the users who downloaded the DLC much of the better update for free and people are happy and that dev changed his way after he or she tested the waters and will hopefully offer like say better DLC that give major improvments and say hello to 5 star reviews or they just leave the iPhone development. Either way this is like Apple saying to the Devs (well to me anyways ) make crappy apps and horrible DLC get out of here and the people who adapted, they give what the customers want and in turn Apple is here another source of renuvue.
Even a few weeks ago, each time I visited the app store on my ipod touch, there would be at least 5 updates waiting! Now I go a week or two before I get an update (and its almost always pocket god)
