

Apple Says "We Have Enough Fart Apps," Here's Why That's Wrong - Towle_
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/apple_says_we_have_enough_fart_apps_heres_why_thats_wrong.php

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Groxx
> _Apple should develop better filtering, ranking and recommendation
> algorithms for displaying available applications to interested users._

Yes.

> _Amateur Developers: Apple Says Stay Away_

No. Their goal is _polished_ applications. You can develop and experiment
without putting it in the app store; they're just asking that you complete it
and make it worthwhile. A fart app isn't even new-to-programming amateur
level, it's "follow any one of dozens of tutorials to make your own without
needing to learn a single thing" level.

Amateurs _can_ make polished, sale-worthy applications - I've seen quite a few
first-app-developers make fantastic programs. Apple is asking them to do so,
rather than attempting to submit the result of a tutorial with a different
background color.

------
rhooper
I have to disagree in a very large way with two of the points this article
makes.

The first is that Apple is dissuading amateur developers by rejecting 'fart
apps', in the metaphorical sense of instituting a qualitative standard. The
App Store is flooded with mass-produced low-quality low-demand junk apps so
that a coding sweatshop in east Asia can make a few bucks per app, times
however many thousands they churn out. THEY are who will be rejected, rather
than someone with a good, novel, new, or beneficial idea.

Second is the thought that Google will solve the App Store's search and
filtering issues. Has the author of this article used the Android Market? For
being backed by the pinnacle of search providers, the Android Market's search
and filtering capabilities are abysmal, and are actually outdone by small-time
independent groups like AppBrain.

Apple DOES have enough fart apps. Android does too. A human element needs to
be involved in the screening process in a qualitative sense. Why are there
hundreds, if not thousands, of single-use "sexy photo jigsaw puzzle" apps?
What about "list of quotes" apps? The App Store is littered with garbage, and
for the greater good, maybe there will be a few casualties, but that's the
price of strengthening an emerging marketplace.

~~~
NickPollard
There's an important point buried in here - AppBrain and similar is something
that is allowed and encouraged on Android, whereas any app that duplicated or
encroached upon market functionality would not be allowed on iOS.

If AppBrain or similar takes off, Google can just buy them and roll it into
Android - an easy win for them. By allowing others to come up with these
systems, Google are effectively allowing Natural Selection to produce the best
App search system.

------
ajg1977
There's a certain irony that readwriteweb (wrongly) call out Apple for being
dismissive of "amateur" developers, then suggest a search/filtering mechanism
that would inevitably result in new or alternative apps being largely ignored
as users limit searches to apps with high rankings or mega sales.

~~~
napierzaza
Their filtering mechanism is generally infeasable too.

here's why (snark): "Apps that only work offline.." That's not so easy, and
neither is the myriad of other attributes of any particular app. Right now
tags and the title of the app contribute to the app search criteria (not the
description).

They're suggesting that every app (including 250,000 existing) fill out a
survey on the specifics of what it does so that people can search via that
attribute? This is their simple solution to the problem?

~~~
nlogn
Mobile app developers already do fill out a survey on the specifics on what
their apps do: they're called app store/market descriptions. I believe the
author meant that these descriptions should be indexed as well.

------
ryandvm
I think Shoemaker is just trying to corner the market...

<http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/08/apple-fart-apps/>

~~~
josefresco
That would be like Google hiring an engineer who used to be a spammer
(reformed?) to maintain the integrity of their search index.

------
ajscherer
_But curated directories didn't end up working for the Web and they won't end
up working for mobile application discovery, either_

This sums up my thoughts on the issue. Does anyone have a good reason why
curation works better than search for mobile apps, but the opposite situation
holds for web apps?

Couldn't Google give every app on the marketplace a website and just use the
regular PageRank as part of App search? I have always felt like the Android
app discovery process should start at google.com, and I think links from
friends and online forums would immediately become the most common way to find
good apps. Why pay people to do what the web could do for you?

Also, I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be possible for someone to create
a "better" (louder / faster / more sophomoric) fart app than what already
exists on the App store. Is Apple ceding those farts to Android? Or would they
make an exception for a really good fart App?

~~~
Groxx
> _Does anyone have a good reason why curation works better than search for
> mobile apps, but the opposite situation holds for web apps?_

Web content is (relatively) static and indexable. It's essentially all
"media".

Applications are not. Developing an algorithm that can deduce what an
application _does_ so it can be searched for is essentially a version of the
halting problem, and even approximation pretty much requires "strong AI" to
get even remotely close on all applications.

Thus, application directories _must_ include a form for the developer to fill
out to be searchable at all. Allowing the developers _alone_ to control this
means false information is too easy to spread, so curating steps in to weed
out as much as possible.

As to _ranking_ , yeah. A PageRank clone makes sense.

------
viae
I disagree that search is the only answer and that Google with get AppStores
right first because that is their expertise. Everyone is on the "better
search" bandwagon because we want to find quality products faster in an
ecosystem of far too many competitors. That makes immediate sense. But, a
superior retail experience can just as easily solve this problem.

The root challenge of app stores is that they break the invisible hand(s) that
rule the marketplace, which consumers and retailers all take for granted as an
important source of guidance and information. A market flooded with unlimited
supplies of unlimited competitors is a wild west of competition. This is
great. But, it's also terrible. As long as supplies of products are unlimited
and free to stock because retail space is also limitless there are no motives
for the retailer to prune it's shelves of unpopular duplicate products.

I think that Apple will continue to allow it's AppStore to grow and for
duplicate applications to be produced, but when the competition with Android
starts to get fierce they will begin to prune the AppStore of low quality
applications. Non-selling apps, particularly with low ratings, will be cut...
and insanely great search that can tell you which fart app of the 30 available
is the best one won't be so important anymore because the one fart app that
exists in the store will be so great it'll make your eyes water.

The trick, of course, is determining how upstarts can compete with more
established applications within a problem space. But, that's a discussion for
next time.

------
wccrawford
Google has pretty much proven that making searches have more features is not
the way to improve them. Before Google, every search engine allowed you to
specify things like words that had to be included, excluded, and more. Some
used multiple text fields and checkboxes and radio boxes and it was very
complicated.

Google initially did the same, but simplified the interface a bit. Now, there
is just 1 box and 2 buttons, and a lot of those options (like + for requiring
a keyword) don't even work the same. (It now seems to give the word higher
weight, but not require it.)

I agree that letting people know why things appear where they do in the list
is a good idea, and maybe even change the sort order. But more options just
means more frustration and there's a breaking point.

------
mikeryan
Here's a better way - if Google is going to figure out a whizbang superman App
Ranking system first and better (which sounds to me like its Not An Easy
Thing), let them do it and then copy it. Because right now from my anecdotal
experience it sounds like the Google App Marketplace is the one with the Too
Many Fart app problem going unsolved - not Apple.

I think the author is way underestimating the problem though.

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protomyth
I think the $99/year fee is a pretty clear indicator that "amateurs" are
welcome.

I would imagine that the expansion of Ping into the app realm will do more for
small developers than some filtering that will inevitably serve big. deep
pocketed companies.

------
tomerico
I think that apple intentions are different. They want you to try really hard
before you submit your application. In the same way YCombinator want you to.

By publicly claiming you only accept quality apps, people will try harder and
self filter.

For example, many companies have job posting only for engineers graduated from
a top university with honors. But in practice they hire a much broader
spectrum.

------
brudgers
App stores are middlemen, and no amount of curated experience will make that
broadly acceptable to purchasers.

Many mobile Apps will eventually be found the same way Windows Apps are today
- In other words, through trusted third parties.

The equivalent of download.com, or sourceforge, may be appropriate for some
mobile apps.

But the elephant in the room is Amazon.

~~~
rhooper
If anything, "mainstream" computer users are trending toward the exact
opposite of this. App Stores for your desktop are the logical next step here.

~~~
code_duck
Apple already has something like that - for MacOSX, of course.

Click on the Apple when the focus is on Finder, and Right under Software
Update is "Mac OS X Software", which directs to
<http://www.apple.com/downloads/-> essentially the App Store for desktops. It
doesn't go through the wretched iTunes interface, though, and I don't believe
applications are for sale, only free download.

I'm sure a paid download and sales model is in the works, or of course they've
at least thought of it.

~~~
philwelch
That's not very similar though. If Apple wanted something like that for Mac OS
X, they'd have something almost exactly like Steam, except you wouldn't have
to use the app-store program to launch your other programs.

The downloads page is from the olden days of Mac OS X, when there was tons of
Mac OS 9 software but almost nothing for Mac OS X and they had to promote
everything you could even get for the new OS. Now that Apple survived the
transition, they just kept the page up out of inertia.

~~~
code_duck
So, I wonder when they'll come out with something like that? Or are they just
planning on getting rid of the relatively free Mac OS in favor of iOS?

~~~
philwelch
Likely neither. The Mac works as is, there's no reason to make it more like
iOS nor to get rid of it.

------
technomancy
It's amazing how much simpler things get if you just rely on Google's already-
awesome web search. Allowing apps to be installed over HTTP is the key here--
if it can be found at the end of a URL, then it fits into a system we've spend
decades refining and are already really damn good at searching.

------
benologist
Apple can't win regardless of what stance they take. But I think they've made
the right choice .... the 1000s of clones that emerge whenever anything is
popular are stupid, and having your app/game surrounded by unpolished garbage,
whether from an amateur or veteran, is also stupid.

------
swilliams
"But who cares about 'Fart' apps?, you may ask. Lots of people do - kids,
especially, of course."

Yes, but nobody is going to buy a different phone to get a _fart app_.

------
ImperatorLunae
I... I didn't know there were fart apps...

 _Gets on his iPhone, downloads a fart app._

~~~
Groxx
How did you decide which one?

~~~
ImperatorLunae
"Atomic Fart" sounded good. It has thirty fart sounds and a "drum set" mode
where you can play five different fart sounds without scrolling through the
list.

~~~
gcheong
And they say there's no innovation in fart apps...

~~~
josefresco
I thought I had another innovative far app idea the other day: Fart
competition app (Friend Fart Off) or a fart analysis and rating app (with real
audio analysis) . Unfortunately after a few Google/App Store searches I found
a few developers have already _innovated_ in this area. Bummer.

------
code_duck
Yes, they're wrong, because one was too many. Fifty is a travesty, not simply
'enough'.

------
gigafemtonano
Isn't a decent chunk of what goes viral on YouTube amateur? I hate the idea
that I could write an app which could make me (and Apple) a chunk of money, if
only they'd accept it in the first place. At least Android is getting to equal
footing with iOS.

------
alsomike
The solution to people not knowing about your product is called marketing, not
search. I don't know why Apple would be in charge of solving marketing
problems for app developers.

------
billybob
"...because they haven't seen THIS fart app!
BRRRAAAAFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTSSSSPPLSH!!!"

------
Towle_
Good devs, sweet devs, let me not stir you up

To such a sudden flood of flame-baiting.

They that have written this post are honourable:

What private griefs they have, alas, I know not,

That made them do it: they are wise and honourable,

And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.

I come not, devs, to steal away your hearts:

I am no web guru, as Sarah is;

But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man,

That "get" the Walled Garden; and that they know full well

That gave me public leave to speak of them:

For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,

Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,

To stir devs' blood: I only speak right on;

I tell you that which you yourselves do know;

Show you Apple's app sales, tall tall stack'd bills

And bid them speak for me: but were I Sarah,

And Sarah user Towle_, there were a user Towle_

Would alter your thinking and expose the methods

To all the madness of Apple that should move

The foes of the iPhone to rise and applaud it.

