A makeover for Apple’s App Store

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In Tuesday’s earnings report conference call, Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook has acknowledged that there is room for improvement in its App store in terms of its categorization method and they already have “some ideas” to improve it.

With over 65,000 applications available for download in the App Store, users are finding it hard to find new applications.

“As you know, today we do it by type of app and also have show popular apps and top-selling apps, et cetera,” Cook said. “We realize there’s opportunity there for further improvement and are working on that.”

The apps that receive the most exposure are the ones that belong to the top 25 downloaded from the App Store. These apps are mostly priced at $0.99.

Analyst Charles Wolf of Needham & Co. has asked Cook whether Apple is taking steps to “enable consumers to separate quality apps from the garbage” as more and more app developers are targeting on the cheap price.

“In some respects, the App Store has taken its place alongside YouTube, where poor taste is the defining metric,” Wolf wrote. “More ominously, it has led to a deterioration of the entire pricing structure for iPhone applications. The risk is that developers who hope to build quality applications that have a long shelf life may be discouraged from doing so because prospective development costs exceed the revenues they expect to earn on the applications. In short, this race to the bottom has the potential to degrade the overall equality of the applications sold at the App Store.”

Cook’s response however, gave no indication that they will interfere with how developers price their apps.

Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to wait for this makeover of the App Store to see how Apple takes on this new challenge.

Source:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/07/22/apple_suggests_app_store_redesign_in_the_works.html