while there's some truth in what you say, it'as also incredibly shortsighted as it doesn't help the struggling app developers now. apple isn't exactly known for quick updates.
I just found something else that is odd, on the apple website the front page has a link to "A Whole New World of Apps" which is here: http://www.apple.com/ipad/apps-for-ipad/ On the bottom of that page it says: "With thousands of apps in the App Store (and counting), you need an easy way to find apps you’ll love. Enter Genius recommendations for apps. Tap the Genius icon to get recommendations for apps that you might like based on apps you and others have downloaded." But there is no genius icon on the iPad, and in the screenshots on the website it shows 5 tabs on the appstore, but on the iPad I'm using there are only 4 tabs in the appstore.
Yes, the lack of categories REALLY sucked. That encouraged me to do the "Day 1 FREE" thing mentioned on the TA front page. I'll share some numbers on that soon. There wasn't even a "Top Games" chart on device for launch. That was REALLLY disappointing. I made my way up to #13 free, but the "on device" people never knew. The other "worst part" about launch, like the iPhone, only the top 50 can be viewed on device (not the full top 100). Smiles HD was only able to make up to about #55, sitting at #60 most of the evening, so I wonder if it was all in vain. Not a good way to "thank" us Apple for the launch day crunch.
They should have it changed soon. Apple wouldn't have that on day one if there was not a reason for it.
The reason is they didn't think it through. Apple screwed up-it's okay you can admit it. And the damage is already done, Anything else now is simply throwing more dirt in the face of the developers.
My guess is they wanted to feature a bunch of the more expensive games and apps, instead of having the race to the bottom start on the first day. This way they can show off the stuff they want to feature, and the other stuff is still there if people somehow search it out.
To add injury to insult, Apple made Snow Leopard OSX a requirement for the iPad SDK beta, forcing developers to shell out money up front. I've seen reviews for at least one iPad app that appears to not even run on real hardware. How did something like this get past Apple's approval process? At the end of the day, Apple gets to announce that it has "thousands of ipad apps" while carefully controlling which apps customers and reviewers are likely to ever stumble across. For anyone that thought that the iPad launch would be a nice way for indies to get some extra visibility for niche apps and to start on a level playing field, guess again. How naive to think that users would be able to browse all iPad apps, sorted by category, and that the "top apps" list wouldn't start filling in until after apps were actually being downloaded.
I doubt that the top lists were somehow doctored for the iPad. We've been getting downloads of Harbor Master HD (free) since this Wednesday, when you could first see iPad apps on iTunes, so I think the lists are definitely real.
Wait a second, now you can't even sort between iPhone and iPad "new and noteworth/whats hot" sections on the itunes page? I don't have an iPad and don't care about new and noteworthy ipad games, but I am forced to look a them. On topic, glad we didn't jump in on the iPad bandwagon now :/
I can only hope that means they are reworking the layout of the stores. It apears that nobody is really happy with the store now. iPad users want to see the iPad apps, iPhone users don't want to have to look at the iPad apps, and the developers would like to have a chance to even be seen. I don't understand why they don't have a section of randomly selected apps in the store that changes every time it is viewed. It would be an easy way to give a lot more apps the visibility that is so hard to gain in the app store.
Well that's exactly my point. Some are already being buried-others may give up in frustration, and all because Apple didn't learn its lesson the first time around. If anyone thinks Apple cares about anything but it's major moneymakers and the big companies, only has to look at this to see the truth. sure, they'll eventually fix this, but it's may already be too late; building a functional store on the bodies of indie developers is not the way to do business.
Well, with all due respect, because I really like and enjoy your game; you had a major publicity blitz, beginning with giving away 1000 free games on the iPhone/Touch. simply because you may not be experiencing the same problems as others, doesn't make that the reality for everyone.
I agree that the problem is there. I'm just saying the top 100 lists are not doctored And yeah, we did have a major publicity blitz. That's no accident, since I've been doing nothing but marketing for about 2 weeks now. I'm pretty marketed out. But it worked, apparently. EDIT: Apparently, you CAN view the category Top 100 lists. On the iPad, go to the Top Charts, and there's a button in the top left called Categories. That takes you to the category top 100s. But then again, I only found this button because it was mentioned in another forum, which makes it minimally useful.
I noticed this as well, and hopefully Apple fixes this asap. Apple really needs to do a better job with marketing devs and not only the big ones.
I'm pretty sure it's intentional. There are a lot of reasons for Apple to showcase only the bigger apps. The smaller guys will keep struggling for scraps no matter what. The big guys will go elsewhere if they can't make meaty profits. Focusing on a narrower range of apps ensures that casual customers have a good first impression. Similarly, if an indie's app doesn't sell, no one cares. If a bigger company has a spectacular success or failure, that has major ramifications for future development. In Apple's developer survey, there were a number of "fill in the blank" answers, where you could make suggestions. I was looking forward to the AppStore section, as I had some ideas I wanted to share. But to my surprise, after clicking "visibility is a problem" I was presented with a simple form asking, "what are you doing to market your apps?" listing a bunch of traditional advertising types: magazines, television spots, etc. There was no place to enter any feedback for AppStore/itunes mechanics. I will say that I've been pleasantly surprised by Chinese Chess (Xiangqi) HD sales. It's a simple HD upgrade to a game where we happened to have high resolution assets ready-to-go. Rather than try to gouge early adaptors, we put it out for 0.99, the same price point as the ipod/iphone version. Sales results are nothing to sing and dance about, but exceeded my low expectations. I'm more interested in what kind of downloads people are seeing with totally free apps, both featured and not.
I have to agree. Apple is too meticulous to have accidentally forgot or launched the app store when it's not ready. This isn't the original iPhone launch where they didn't know. They know exactly what they're doing. Even the day 1 jailbreak, IMO is an intentional oversight.
Underworlds Ultimate Edition sales were extremely disappointing. It's pretty much impossible to find unless you know the exact name or hit one of the keywords. Hopefully category searches are added soon...
