Apple Launches List of Top iPhone Apps by Revenue
posted by arn on September 9th, 2009 12:38 PM EDT in News
Apple is hosting their iPod Media event today. We will report on all the new products and changes they announce.
But one change has already started to appear… Apple seems to have listened to the complaints from developers and has finally created a top list based on Revenue, not just on Units sold. This should provide developers some reward for having a higher paid app that sells reasonably well.
The new list is live [iTunes Link] in the App Store. The list is still topped by I Am T-Pain but apps such as Uno ($4.99), TomTom U.S. & Canada ($99.99), and Golfshot : Golf GPS ($29.99) are in the Top 10 by Revenue.
We'll provide more updates as they come in.
It also seems they have deactivated the category view for a bit… at least in my copy of iTunes. Maybe there's going to be another surprise in the various category listings??? More categories please!
"more categories"?
No. Apple's listed the already existent game genres for the most part. The issue is that they don't list the right games under some of the genres.
Those text MMOs are NOT adventure games, for instance. And some of the games listed under "RPG" aren't RPGs at all.
That's up to the devs to select.
Anders said it, but it bears repeating…. developers set their categories, period. Apple does not. Apple also does not seem to care that developers will at times *intentionally* mis-categorize their app or game with the hopes it will be seen by a larger audience.
RPGs are a good example, since I'm in that category. We should have MMO as a subcategory of its own (either as an offshoot of RPGs, or in addition to). Those damn "point" apps flood the RPG category constantly, I was hoping version 3.0 would bring an end to that and consolidate points as in-app purchases, but I don't see any evidence that it's getting better.
And that's just the issues for my little corner of the app store. Other areas are just as bad. With additional categories or subcategories more people could get their apps noticed (more various sets of top 100 such-and-such). It would be a win for developers and shoppers alike. I don't see why there should be any resistance to that
I'm very impressed with the progress Apple has made over the last year. It's good to know they have the interests of the developer in mind too.
Looks like we'll have to wait until iTunes 10 before a complete re-design tho. Can't wait!
The iTunes LP seems pretty cool. I hope it just gets added to my Dave Matthews iTunes Pass.
They were really in need of correcting App Store things. Searching the iTunes store as a whole needs to be corrected as well.
Hey, that's great news for everybody. Just a shame they chose such a non-sexy name.
Scrabble? That was one I regreted purchasing.
Now it says "Top Grossing Apps" which is a little better name I think.
Now just move it up ABOVE the old top 10 list
(Both lists are visible.)
It'd be nice if they had a "top grossing apps of all time" list. Then new consumers would be able to pick up some stuff they may have missed out on otherwise.
Would it be cynical to suggest that the real purpose of this list is to discourage developers from dropping their prices to 99c as soon as they see their sales dip?
In fact, I hope this list is hard to find in iTunes. The idea that users will buy apps based on how much cash they've made will only make life harder for small devs.