
Apple Pursues New Search Features for a Crowded App Store - walterbell
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-14/apple-said-to-pursue-new-search-features-for-crowded-app-store
======
devhead
I would like Apple to fix search before they start asking devs to pay for
placement. For such a simple data set, their search features are completely
non-existent. Search terms look to need to be pretty close to exact, the
search results are artificially limited by some mechanism, no ability to
search multiple terms, no ability to create custom lists, no ability to filter
based on more than their two or three meaningless filters, etc.

I suspect that after nearly a decade of no meaningful enhancements, this is
done by design and helps push specific apps up the list in some manner.

Adding paid search capabilities helps no one except Apple and large
development companies that can now blow through their marketing budget even
quicker. Great for them not so great for Jane Doe's app which suffers under
this type of oppressive change.

~~~
Aqua_Geek
> no ability to create custom lists

What do you mean by this?

> no ability to filter based on more than their two or three meaningless
> filters, etc

What kinds of things would you want to filter on? (Not disagreeing, just
honestly curious.)

~~~
visarga
One of the biggest problems in the App Store is discoverability. The only
options are to search for specific keywords or to browse one of the few lists
offered by Apple. User-created lists add a bit of human perspective on the
problem of finding related items. For example, on YouTube I consider lists as
being very important for navigation.

------
seibelj
Reviews are easily gamed, which seems to be the number one way to rank higher,
and releasing a new version of an app wipes out reviews, which penalizes apps
that are frequently improved and rewards forgotten apps. This is also driving
the development of frameworks and tools that allow app updates without going
through the App Store, such as react native, which I assume Apple doesn't want
to encourage. Please reward apps that provide real value, that people
constantly use after installing, rather than apps that game the system.

------
chvid
Apple's app store is crowded in the sense that developers, in total, have
spent far more worth of development hours building stuff for the app store
than the app store generates in revenue.

That is why only very few make money, most make nothing, nearly all make less
than their cost of development and advertisement.

Apple now appearantly plans to ask developers to pay for search position, in
addition to what they already are paying for advertisement and development.

This will only make the problem worse.

------
rudedogg
If I was tasked with creating a system that only benefits those ALREADY doing
well in the app store, and hurts indie developers I would come up with exactly
what they're proposing.

I really hope this doesn't get implemented. There's low hanging fruit that
could really help with the discoverability issues:

    
    
      More categories
      Better search (the matching is crap)
      More curated lists
      GET RID OF THE GARBAGE (old, broken and outdated apps should be removed)
    

Fixing those issues, and making a trial/paid upgrade path for apps would help
and make developers happy. Unfortunately I guess there's more money in soaking
up some of the ad money companies spend on Facebook. With paid listings expect
to see Clash of Clans listed for.. everything

------
codecamper
Apple seems destined to repeat their previous mistakes.

They had a big lead in with Apps, but now their phone market share must be
approaching their desktop market share.

They owned the app store, but then they did such a lousy job: no paid
upgrades, very poor policing of fake reviews.

------
bsder
Interesting. This would seem to imply that revenue is flat or down given
Apple's previous intransigence on this front.

Personal experience tends to back this up. I can't think of anybody in my
immediate circle who actually paid for something in the last year on their
iPad/iPhone.

~~~
hacker_9
The only time I buy anything on my android phone is after I've downloaded the
free version first, found it was actually useful, and then upgrade and get the
pro features. Apps are so cheap I have no problem spending the money, but
testing the app out first is crucial because _there is so much crapware on the
app store!_

I literally do not trust buy-only apps anymore because of it. For example I
wanted to log my gym progress in an app, and I had to go through at least 10
different apps before I finally found one that had the functionality I wanted
(fitframe devs thank you!).

~~~
makecheck
Yep. A really simple thing they could do is have like a “one hour timer before
payment” that basically says you have a chance to download and tinker with
something first, and if you delete the app then you will never pay for it.

------
whatev5
If their concern is helping developers create sustainable businesses on the
app store they should at least provide more monetization options.

\- Why won't they do timed free trials for paid apps? How many years now have
developers been crying out for that, at this point its just cruel to not
provide this option.

\- How about SaaS? Paid subscription for access to an app. A developer chooses
a tier to charge and a period, the OS does the rest. Make it easy. Paid
subscriptions on the app store are plagued by pointless rules.

If the users don't like it, businesses that use these techniques won't
prosper. Leave it to the market. Let the developers choose.

If its easier to monetize per download the problem of search is reduced… its
hard to get found, but if you can make some money when you are found it
matters less.

Improve search too but its not all there is.

Monetisation is a bigger problem ; A refusal to address it has led to a
library of unsupported apps. The new apple tvs app library is an
embarrassment, where are the killer device selling titles?

Why are so few apps supporting new device features like 3D touch? Theres also
very few apps taking advantage of the iPad pro.

Its monetization apple. Why don't they do anything about it?

------
makecheck
I know it’s Apple’s style to try to do everything themselves but search has
simply never been their strong suit. (Even now, I work around Spotlight using
3rd party software; and Spotlight integration in things like Apple Mail is so
messed up that I see it inanely failing to find words in messages that I am
currently LOOKING AT.)

It is time to team up with Bing and/or Google and just make external search
the default.

It should be possible to use things like "appstore:ios" as a filter term much
like "site:xyz.com", etc. and just offload the entire summary page of every
app for indexing. The summaries for apps seem to be rendered as web pages
anyway, since the App Store acts like some kind of web view.

And when search results are constructed from such filters, all the default
links would be formatted by Bing/Google to open the appropriate app store
page.

All this stuff exists in bits and pieces now, and has for years, it just
hasn’t been put together anywhere. It really does seem as simple as dumping
every app web page somewhere, indexing it with Google, converting all the
results links to use an app-store URL, and saying “done”.

------
nathanaldensr
Am I wrong in suggesting that Apple created this problem and is now asking
developers to pay to "fix" it? Why wasn't search _already_ better?

------
reiichiroh
Search in the App Store is broken and useless. Also, the bread crumbs
categories is limited to the US store and missing from the Canadian store.
Where are my bread crumbs, Apple?

------
gdudeman
This is good for Apple: It's a good incremental revenue opportunity. Facebook
makes a lot of money helping app developers find their way to installs.

This _could_ be good for developers: If Apple follows this to its logical
extent, they will also let developers A/B test art and copy for their app,
making it easier for app developers to find the parts of their app that really
resonate with users and get installs.

