app store gripes
The link to Wil Shipley's blog post about this topic wasn't enough for me. Plus I'm bored and I can't sleep. Sorry :P
fuckin' nda
So, if you're an iPhone developer or you've been following the iPhone development news lately, you've probably heard of Podcaster (rejected, adhoc distributed, blocked), NetShare (banned), and I Am Rich (the $1000 app removed from app store) and a couple of other horror stories. Not to mention the FUCKING NDA applying to iPhone development (unless you're Stanford teaching an iPhone development class (or pretty much any other .edu under the education program..wait, what the fuck? an iPhone developer program for universities?!)) and a publisher like PragProg that has an iPhone dev book sitting around unable to be published because for all intents and purposes, the NDA applies to everyone but is selectively enforced. So basically, schools can teach all they want, but we can't legally have our websites and books and mailing lists. Except people have broken the FUCKING NDA on Apple's own forums, and of course there's already mailing lists and websites and enough NDA breaking questions on Stack Overflow and other sites. And none to my knowledge have been removed as a result of breaking the FUCKING NDA.
Fuck the NDA.
edit: oh hai, Apple announced on October 1st that they're pretty much obliterating the more problematic parts of the NDA. Now onto the other issues ;)
useless apps
Anyway, no matter the above, if you own an iPhone or iPod touch and have downloaded at least a couple of apps, you know that a huge number of apps are pointless/stupid/buggy/annoying/retarded but were allowed onto the app store anyway. If you've purchased more than a few apps, you know that you almost never touch any of them after a short period of "ooh shiny". Raise your hands if that's the case..oh look, that must be everyone.
Cause I'm not the only person who's seen that. I've downloaded over 140 apps (many paid), and I have to say there's only really a handful of 3rd party applications I use daily: bookshelf, shazam, evernote, iflipr, instapaper, issh. There's a few more I use like once every week: netshare, rooms, flashlight (you'd be surprised), frotz. And I swear to god, every single other application on my iPhone is lucky to be launched more than a couple times after buying it, with the exception of some games like Spore: Origins and de Blob, which were ignored after a couple dozen times. Doesn't matter if it's a $10 game or a free utility. And even out of the small handful I use, they're not perfect...some have the most irritating bugs ever. And out of the ones that are not free that I use at least once a week, only iSSH is something I actually think is worth buying. The rest can go suck it.
I haven't even started on the number of truly frivolous applications on the app store out there that just seriously piss the hell out of me. What the fuck at 99 cent public domain ebooks? And why the heck are people buying them? There are multiple ebook readers for the iPhone now that you can use to read project gutenberg ebooks, some free! The ebooks are free! Go download a free ebook reader and your free project gutenberg ebooks, then donate the 99 cents to project gutenberg or other similar group.
useless reviews
Recently, some people (like this guy) discovered that the app store will now only let you leave reviews for an application if you've purchased it. A whole bunch of developers were really excited that the reviews are going to be limited to purchasers only. Well you know what? I purchased a lot of their apps and more, and I can write the same goddamn fucking inane one star one line reviews nobody wants to see: "costs WAY too much", "not enough functionality", "stupid as hell", "the developer didn't answer my email that I spent an hour typing up with bug reports and crashlogs attached", "what the fuck is this guy smoking jacking up the price of his useless app that gets even more useless with every update", "don't buy this", "this app is so awful I'm sorely tempted to code a competitor...".
And in the reverse situation, they could miss out on a really good review of an app that I didn't purchase but used on someone else's phone, maybe even to the point that I use it more than the original purchaser. This applies even more if you live with someone else with an iPhone. I do this with a lot of games, since some of them can't be demoed before a purchase. Plus I know I don't really want to pay $10 or whatever for it, but I could write up a nice review. Well, now I can't.
Also, helllooooo hypocrites. A whole bunch of people wrote reviews for apps without purchasing/downloading said apps, lambasting the developer for charging for an inferior ripoff of code freely given to all iPhone developers regardless of license. And who exactly were ranting about Stevens Creek Software's horrible TripLog/1040? Oh yeah, "it's obvious what the problems are" without using them, right? Well, that's probably how a lot of non-purchaser reviews justify their own reviews.
Maybe this change will cut down on the REALLY stupid reviews. But inane reviews can come from anyone, and they can be downmodded and ignored to eventually just disappear into the bottom of the stack of comments. Have you ever been on a site with reviews that tell you who's writing it? Like Newegg, they mark whether or not the reviewer purchased the item from Newegg. I can tell you right now I've seen my fair share of ridiculous crap in reviews from customers on that site alone.
What I absolutely cannot understand is why some people act like this is going to make a huge difference. If you have a disproportionately huge number of non-purchasers reviewing your application, you probably are doing something wrong and you should look into it, especially if it's a complaint that has nothing to do with pricing (that is really up to you). And I don't know how everyone else grew up, but I grew up taking these things with a grain of salt. Unless a friend or known trustworthy reviewer starts recommending something to me, there is no way in hell I'll look at a small handful of retarded one line reviews to see if I should buy your product...and I'm not really going to listen to some if not most to all of the purchasers either, since a lot of them have no fucking clue or just aren't really great writers of reviews.
So, this is my suggestion, and I guess I should copy/paste this into a radar when I get around to it.
Apple needs to make some more changes to the way reviews are handled on the app store. Right now, the biggest problem is being unable to see the date on which the purchaser reviewed it, the date they purchased the application, at what price, and which version they were commenting on, not based on what's in iTunes, but what's actually installed on the device. Hello, this is a no-brainer for software. One of my reviews was for an application something like a day after it was released, the third revision of it is the one displayed in the app store now, it was reviewing the very first version, and it doesn't mention the price. Since then, said software has turned into a complete pile of shit after two updates and the price now something like 4x what I paid, and the original price was already excessive to me. I've emailed my thoughts on said program to developer, who disagreed with almost every single one of my suggestions that I feel it's a waste of my time to send any more. I'm undecided between whether or not I should just keep that review up or to write a way more scathing one detailing exactly why I hate the app so much, why I wish I could get a refund, and why (if I can find some spare time to brush up on things) I am ready to work on a competing product. (Should I out the app? Or is it too obvious what it is? If you knew the app and were familiar with what it does, you would agree on almost all of my suggestions ;) )
Every single one of those extra tidbits of information could be more useful than obliterating non-purchaser reviews from the store. Simply just mark them as non-purchasers, weigh their reviews less, and move the hell on.
where are you android?
Hurry up Android. You're not perfect, and I don't really like you (unless tmo wants to sell the G1 or some better Android-running hardware for super duper cheap with no plan so I can just mess around with it). But you know what, you really need to kick some serious Apple ass right now.
I'm not sure what or who the fuck Apple thinks they are - and I've heard lots of arguments from all sorts of people about why they're pulling all of this crap, more than I care for and some more unbelievable than others - but a lot needs to change soon to make the app store better. Or at least Apple could stop bullshitting everyone and explain why. It's really just insane when Apple strives to do something that pisses people off, well-known developers complain, and Apple thinks up something new that pisses people off. There are a lot of really dissatisfied people out there who don't have the guts to do more than just bitch on twitter (with a lot of others), moan on a blog (if they haven't already replaced it with twitter) and file a radar (get marked as a dupe) or send an email to developer relations (probably virtually ignored). Nobody wants to get blacklisted for speaking a little bit too openly about all the retardedness, since, let's all admit it here, thanks to codesigning Apple can happily restrict people all they want.
Oh, it hasn't been all fun and games since last March. Whoop-de-doo.
fuckin' nda
So, if you're an iPhone developer or you've been following the iPhone development news lately, you've probably heard of Podcaster (rejected, adhoc distributed, blocked), NetShare (banned), and I Am Rich (the $1000 app removed from app store) and a couple of other horror stories. Not to mention the FUCKING NDA applying to iPhone development (unless you're Stanford teaching an iPhone development class (or pretty much any other .edu under the education program..wait, what the fuck? an iPhone developer program for universities?!)) and a publisher like PragProg that has an iPhone dev book sitting around unable to be published because for all intents and purposes, the NDA applies to everyone but is selectively enforced. So basically, schools can teach all they want, but we can't legally have our websites and books and mailing lists. Except people have broken the FUCKING NDA on Apple's own forums, and of course there's already mailing lists and websites and enough NDA breaking questions on Stack Overflow and other sites. And none to my knowledge have been removed as a result of breaking the FUCKING NDA.
Fuck the NDA.
edit: oh hai, Apple announced on October 1st that they're pretty much obliterating the more problematic parts of the NDA. Now onto the other issues ;)
useless apps
Anyway, no matter the above, if you own an iPhone or iPod touch and have downloaded at least a couple of apps, you know that a huge number of apps are pointless/stupid/buggy/annoying/retarded but were allowed onto the app store anyway. If you've purchased more than a few apps, you know that you almost never touch any of them after a short period of "ooh shiny". Raise your hands if that's the case..oh look, that must be everyone.
Cause I'm not the only person who's seen that. I've downloaded over 140 apps (many paid), and I have to say there's only really a handful of 3rd party applications I use daily: bookshelf, shazam, evernote, iflipr, instapaper, issh. There's a few more I use like once every week: netshare, rooms, flashlight (you'd be surprised), frotz. And I swear to god, every single other application on my iPhone is lucky to be launched more than a couple times after buying it, with the exception of some games like Spore: Origins and de Blob, which were ignored after a couple dozen times. Doesn't matter if it's a $10 game or a free utility. And even out of the small handful I use, they're not perfect...some have the most irritating bugs ever. And out of the ones that are not free that I use at least once a week, only iSSH is something I actually think is worth buying. The rest can go suck it.
I haven't even started on the number of truly frivolous applications on the app store out there that just seriously piss the hell out of me. What the fuck at 99 cent public domain ebooks? And why the heck are people buying them? There are multiple ebook readers for the iPhone now that you can use to read project gutenberg ebooks, some free! The ebooks are free! Go download a free ebook reader and your free project gutenberg ebooks, then donate the 99 cents to project gutenberg or other similar group.
useless reviews
Recently, some people (like this guy) discovered that the app store will now only let you leave reviews for an application if you've purchased it. A whole bunch of developers were really excited that the reviews are going to be limited to purchasers only. Well you know what? I purchased a lot of their apps and more, and I can write the same goddamn fucking inane one star one line reviews nobody wants to see: "costs WAY too much", "not enough functionality", "stupid as hell", "the developer didn't answer my email that I spent an hour typing up with bug reports and crashlogs attached", "what the fuck is this guy smoking jacking up the price of his useless app that gets even more useless with every update", "don't buy this", "this app is so awful I'm sorely tempted to code a competitor...".
And in the reverse situation, they could miss out on a really good review of an app that I didn't purchase but used on someone else's phone, maybe even to the point that I use it more than the original purchaser. This applies even more if you live with someone else with an iPhone. I do this with a lot of games, since some of them can't be demoed before a purchase. Plus I know I don't really want to pay $10 or whatever for it, but I could write up a nice review. Well, now I can't.
Also, helllooooo hypocrites. A whole bunch of people wrote reviews for apps without purchasing/downloading said apps, lambasting the developer for charging for an inferior ripoff of code freely given to all iPhone developers regardless of license. And who exactly were ranting about Stevens Creek Software's horrible TripLog/1040? Oh yeah, "it's obvious what the problems are" without using them, right? Well, that's probably how a lot of non-purchaser reviews justify their own reviews.
Maybe this change will cut down on the REALLY stupid reviews. But inane reviews can come from anyone, and they can be downmodded and ignored to eventually just disappear into the bottom of the stack of comments. Have you ever been on a site with reviews that tell you who's writing it? Like Newegg, they mark whether or not the reviewer purchased the item from Newegg. I can tell you right now I've seen my fair share of ridiculous crap in reviews from customers on that site alone.
What I absolutely cannot understand is why some people act like this is going to make a huge difference. If you have a disproportionately huge number of non-purchasers reviewing your application, you probably are doing something wrong and you should look into it, especially if it's a complaint that has nothing to do with pricing (that is really up to you). And I don't know how everyone else grew up, but I grew up taking these things with a grain of salt. Unless a friend or known trustworthy reviewer starts recommending something to me, there is no way in hell I'll look at a small handful of retarded one line reviews to see if I should buy your product...and I'm not really going to listen to some if not most to all of the purchasers either, since a lot of them have no fucking clue or just aren't really great writers of reviews.
So, this is my suggestion, and I guess I should copy/paste this into a radar when I get around to it.
Apple needs to make some more changes to the way reviews are handled on the app store. Right now, the biggest problem is being unable to see the date on which the purchaser reviewed it, the date they purchased the application, at what price, and which version they were commenting on, not based on what's in iTunes, but what's actually installed on the device. Hello, this is a no-brainer for software. One of my reviews was for an application something like a day after it was released, the third revision of it is the one displayed in the app store now, it was reviewing the very first version, and it doesn't mention the price. Since then, said software has turned into a complete pile of shit after two updates and the price now something like 4x what I paid, and the original price was already excessive to me. I've emailed my thoughts on said program to developer, who disagreed with almost every single one of my suggestions that I feel it's a waste of my time to send any more. I'm undecided between whether or not I should just keep that review up or to write a way more scathing one detailing exactly why I hate the app so much, why I wish I could get a refund, and why (if I can find some spare time to brush up on things) I am ready to work on a competing product. (Should I out the app? Or is it too obvious what it is? If you knew the app and were familiar with what it does, you would agree on almost all of my suggestions ;) )
Every single one of those extra tidbits of information could be more useful than obliterating non-purchaser reviews from the store. Simply just mark them as non-purchasers, weigh their reviews less, and move the hell on.
where are you android?
Hurry up Android. You're not perfect, and I don't really like you (unless tmo wants to sell the G1 or some better Android-running hardware for super duper cheap with no plan so I can just mess around with it). But you know what, you really need to kick some serious Apple ass right now.
I'm not sure what or who the fuck Apple thinks they are - and I've heard lots of arguments from all sorts of people about why they're pulling all of this crap, more than I care for and some more unbelievable than others - but a lot needs to change soon to make the app store better. Or at least Apple could stop bullshitting everyone and explain why. It's really just insane when Apple strives to do something that pisses people off, well-known developers complain, and Apple thinks up something new that pisses people off. There are a lot of really dissatisfied people out there who don't have the guts to do more than just bitch on twitter (with a lot of others), moan on a blog (if they haven't already replaced it with twitter) and file a radar (get marked as a dupe) or send an email to developer relations (probably virtually ignored). Nobody wants to get blacklisted for speaking a little bit too openly about all the retardedness, since, let's all admit it here, thanks to codesigning Apple can happily restrict people all they want.
Oh, it hasn't been all fun and games since last March. Whoop-de-doo.