

Ask HN: Curated Google Play Alternative? - notduncansmith

Can anyone recommend a source of proven high-quality Android apps, that are human-tested and does not contain any spammy&#x2F;broken apps? If not, is there a desire for such a resource?
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benologist
I think there is demand for this, a _ridiculous_ amount of my android games
just come from HumbleBundle.

There are some blogs like
[http://www.droidgamers.com/](http://www.droidgamers.com/) but nothing really
appeals to me ala [http://toucharcade.com/](http://toucharcade.com/) for iOS.

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notduncansmith
Just out of curiosity (and the fact that I'm totally going to build this if I
can validate it) would you pay for such a service? I would assume the way to
go would be a submission fee for app developers.

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benologist
Do you mean for the store, the curation, or the apps themselves?

I think I'd be open to a subscription that gave me a selection of new games
every month. The other thing I like and do often is buy games on sale on iOS
which doesn't happen as much (and especially 'free this weekend' kind of
stuff) on Play.

Edit: I'd also be super, super open to a weekly or twice monthly humble bundle
style thing for Android.

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notduncansmith
I meant the curation: however, it's interesting that you bring up the Humble
Bundle, as I was considering going that route as well.

There are multiple takes on the idea: one being more of an index of high-
quality games/apps, and the other being a HB-style sale (which of course,
would contain only high-quality apps).

As a consumer, which would you prefer?

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benologist
I prefer the bundle style because it's more serendipitous for me, I only have
to like one game for it to be worth it, and I only have to check once a week
or whatever to see if there's a new one.

As just an index you'd have a harder time monetizing it but it would be
shitloads easier to do - Amazon will do affiliate links but you won't get
anything for Play referrals, that leaves you with just ads which only works
with lots of traffic.

One thing that I thought would be quite awesome a while ago is if you could
hijack a subreddit and let them power recommendations for you - get people to
include "#whatever" in the submission title to nominate a game, use votes for
ranking, and largely automate it. If you can get legitimate participation and
interest that would be really, really interesting and you can incorporate
meta-votes in comments as well, like #sale or #towerdefense or whatever.

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factorialboy
I would like a store that highlights open source apps. I tend to trust them
more, for very good reason.

