Existing users, 
iPhone AppStore: user and developer complaints
Posted 18 July 2008 @ 10am in News
In the days since the AppStore’s debut, we discovered a few issues with iTunes 7.7, iPhone OS 2.0, and the mechanisms for interacting with applications. Likewise, developers are expressing concerns regarding application placement in AppStore listings, deployment of updates, application debugging, SDK limitations, app distribution issues and the rating/review system.
User Complaints
The update mechanism in iTunes exhibits a few mildly significant bugs. In house, we were presented with an application update through iTunes, appearing as a “1″ next to the Applications entry in the iTunes sidebar. The notification was accompanied by the following message lower right hand side of the iTunes screen: “1 Update Available.”
Clicking that message brought us to a screen that showed not only one application needing an update, but also nine others. The lack of an accurate update count appears to be a bug.
You might also see two alerts: one that tells you that updates are available and gives you an option to view them or one that tells you none are available. We’ve since discovered that this is a documented bug that Apple is aware of documented under Bug ID #6072194.
In addition, we confirmed with one game developer that a purported update was actually the original version submitted to the AppStore.
Developer Complaints
Developers have expressed some concern over application placement in the iTunes App store “Sort By: Name” listing. Initially there was some controversy regarding the fact that developers submitted their Apps with extra spaces added to the front of their Apps title. This would immediately place that developers App at the top of the list, perhaps unfairly providing a viewership advantage. Apple quietly resolved the problem by fixing the listing system. This change effectively put apps where they belonged in the first place.
We also received complaints from developers about that fact that updates were not being deployed fast enough, if at all. Updates on Sunday prior to that were actually of the same version of Apps previously purchased or downloaded. It’s unclear why the duplicate updates appeared. Some theorize that Apple was testing the waters for updates prior to pushing others in mass out to iTunes.
One developer in particular lamented the fact that there are currently no venues for distributing review copies, offering discounts or sales on apps. Users pay full price no matter what until Apple changes some of its policies.
Yet another developer voiced a complaint about the “sandboxed” environment surrounding iPhone Apps. Bugs reported by users are hard to track or even get feedback about that would be used to determine the cause of the bug. Beta testing in a user environment is non-existent. This makes confirming whether or not the bug is fixed prior to releasing a new version of the App next to impossible.
Another complaint from developers concerns the restrictions placed on them by Apple’s SDK. Developers cannot patch into dialing to provide voice dialing, the camera to allow for video recording, or to add many missing features to the iPhone. Many developers are abandoning the development of some quality apps because of the limitations.
Reviews on the iTunes Apps store are also of are major concern for some developers. Of primary importance is the fact that users of the iTunes App store can post reviews without first having purchased and trying the product.
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7 Comments
Posted by Dinnesdale
18 July 2008 @ 10am
Your post says:
“Another complaint from developers concerns the restrictions placed on them by Apple’s SDK. Developers cannot patch into dialing to provide voice dialing…”
If the SDK is not allowing patching into dialing, how can appstore selections like Rotary Dailer work?
Posted by sfdh66787
18 July 2008 @ 10am
“Reviews on the iTunes Apps store are also of are major concern for some developers. Of primary importance is the fact that users of the iTunes App store can post reviews without first having purchased and trying the product.”
Certainly Apple should be able to detect whether or not an iTunes account holder actually purchased and downloaded the app. I would hope that this kind of functionality, or at least a way to view only reviews by those who have done so, would be implemented.
Posted by aalvaradpr
18 July 2008 @ 12pm
There are some mayor mistakes in this article, first Apple corrected the alphabetical order since Tuesday and they are neither using the reviews for their rakings to obviously prevent the manipulation that this post is implying .This information have been publish in Pinchmedia.com since Tuesday, this post should to be corrected immediately.
AppStore review quality doesn’t affect rankings
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 10:36 AM
Pinch Media records a lot of data as part of our reporting on the AppStore, but there’s a lot we deliberately don’t publish. For instance, we don’t report on reviews. Reviews are currently the easiest-to-manipulate aspect of the AppStore. A person doesn’t have to use the application to review it, and the […]
AppStore alphabetization order fixed
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 10:05 AM
Responding to developer complaints, Apple has fixed the immediate alphabetization problem with its AppStore. For the most part, numbers, spaces, and punctuation at the start of names are simply ignored - the application name ‘2 Across’, for instance, appears in the alphabetical order list as if it were simply ‘Across’. There appears to […]
Posted by iPhone Fanatic
18 July 2008 @ 3pm
My computer said I had 4 updates available when I had actually had 7!
Posted by mediatime
22 July 2008 @ 9am
I am having a terrible time with appStore…as far as I am concerned I am not at al dissatisfied with the applications,some of which are really nice. The problems are all with iPhone, long backups and conflict between updates…Sometimes although all my applications are the same some updates are available on the appStore on the Phone., while others only in iTunes. I was told by apple staff to cancel some applications manually but iTunes failed to sync new applications…After many attemps, my iPhone froze completely …stuck at the initial apple Logo…this is really very frustrating…iPhone 3G can be a real disaster sometimes
Posted by pelted
22 July 2008 @ 12pm
As a developer with two applications in the store, I can reaffirm some of these frustrations. My biggest issues at this point are related to the lack up updates being pushed out. It is rather frustrating to have a fix for users, yet they can not get it.
Second, relates to the crash reporting feedback. With wide spread instability across applications right now, it is becoming hard to determine where the problems are. What works flawlessly for the masses is causing application crashing for the few. I want to help, and the idea of a hardware platform like this should eliminate some of these issues, but it just is not. Solving these problems is a nightmare right now.
As for the reviews. The worst thing I am seeing right now across the board, is people not review the applications in the store, but rather making comparisons to jailbroken free versions. They complain because a developer has decided to charge a few dollars for a quality application that they could previously get for free in Installer. They give piss poor ratings, flame the developers, and just act like they are entitled to everything for free. It is deflating to read these on my own applications, and infuriating when I see them on others. I have been going around reporting a concern on many of these that I find through out the store. I just hope Apple is able to do something about it.
Posted by Tungsten2K
29 July 2008 @ 1pm
I agree with the sentiments of ignorant reviewers skewing ratings based on irrelevant or purely normative rants, Illustrating that a truly democratic rating system statistically generates spurious votes that drastically affect, but aren’t qualitatively represented in the blanket “Average” rating shown to the public. Mature online rating systems like Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0833030477/ref=cm_cr_pr_redirect) have long since solved this by showing trending patterns that take into consideration the rating distributions, which helps immensely for consumers trying to use the review data for decision making.
My only hope as a developer would be to have faith that my application was targeted to a sufficiently intelligent client base that the “noise” reviews from otherwise non-customers will mitigate the effects of these artificially deflated review entries