Apple Says "We Have Enough Fart Apps," Here's Why That's Wrong

&#62;<i>Apple should develop better filtering, ranking and recommendation algorithms for displaying available applications to interested users.</i><p>Yes.<p>&#62;<i>Amateur Developers: Apple Says Stay Away</i><p>No. Their goal is <i>polished</i> 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.<p>Amateurs <i>can</i> 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.

I have to disagree in a very large way with two of the points this article makes.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.

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.

I think Shoemaker is just trying to corner the market...<p><a href="http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/08/apple-fart-apps/" rel="nofollow">http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/08/apple-fart-apps/</a>

<i>But curated directories didn't end up working for the Web and they won't end up working for mobile application discovery, either</i><p>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?<p>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?<p>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?

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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.

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.<p>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.)<p>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.

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.<p>I think the author is way underestimating the problem though.

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

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

App stores are middlemen, and no amount of curated experience will make that broadly acceptable to purchasers.<p>Many mobile Apps will eventually be found the same way Windows Apps are today - In other words, through trusted third parties.<p>The equivalent of download.com, or sourceforge, may be appropriate for some mobile apps.<p>But the elephant in the room is Amazon.

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.

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.

"But who cares about 'Fart' apps?, you may ask. Lots of people do - kids, especially, of course."<p>Yes, but nobody is going to buy a different phone to get a <i>fart app</i>.

I... I didn't know there were fart apps...<p><i>Gets on his iPhone, downloads a fart app.</i>

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

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.

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.

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

Good devs, sweet devs, let me not stir you up<p>To such a sudden flood of flame-baiting.<p>They that have written this post are honourable:<p>What private griefs they have, alas, I know not,<p>That made them do it: they are wise and honourable,<p>And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.<p>I come not, devs, to steal away your hearts:<p>I am no web guru, as Sarah is;<p>But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man,<p>That "get" the Walled Garden; and that they know full well<p>That gave me public leave to speak of them:<p>For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,<p>Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,<p>To stir devs' blood: I only speak right on;<p>I tell you that which you yourselves do know;<p>Show you Apple's app sales, tall tall stack'd bills<p>And bid them speak for me: but were I Sarah,<p>And Sarah user Towle_, there were a user Towle_<p>Would alter your thinking and expose the methods<p>To all the madness of Apple that should move<p>The foes of the iPhone to rise and applaud it.