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Developers furious over App Store “Line Cutting”

32 points by nickb 18y ago

Hexstream 18y ago
I'd sink them to the bottom of the list, no less. As well as fixing the problem, of course.
astrec 18y ago
So they trim non-alphanumeric chars - how long before we see AAAJirbo Break. They should disable alphanumeric sorting and instead sort by date (newest), rating (popular) etc. Good faceted navigation would likely remove the desire to sort by name.
- nickb 18y ago
  Amazon does exactly that and so do many other web stores. Alphanumeric listing will probably be taken out of AppStore.
- cstejerean 18y ago
  You're right, little reason to sort by name. I can use search to locate an app if I know the name, and when I'm just browsing sorting by popularity or reviews would be more helpful. On the other hand when I see "!! asdfasdf" and "AAAasdfasdf" I know it's likely a terrible app so I don't even have to bother checking it out.
tlrobinson 18y ago
appName.trim() or equivalent.
henning 18y ago
It's time for Apple to exercise their proprietary software/benevolent dictator/gatekeeper abilities and drop all this shit like a bad habit.
nickb 18y ago
Pretty shady company... no about us page, no corporate info, no address on the contact page, no privacy policy, no terms of service and their WHOIS entry is anonymized by Domains by Proxy.
davidu 18y ago
Apple will fix this.
tocomment 18y ago
By the way, can I sign up and make an iPhone app now, or is there still a waiting list and approval process?
- silencio 18y ago
  there's still an approval process for most steps, but it seems now most people who've applied are getting acceptance into the program itself. now, getting your app into the app store and upgrading your apps is a slightly different process, and it looks like there's a huge backlog there :(
  - tocomment 18y ago
    If I just want to write a program for my own iPhone, do I still have to get them to put it in the store, just for me to be able to install it on my phone?
    - silencio 18y ago
      no, there's something called ad hoc distribution that lets you run your app on up to 100 phones on the standard program...I think more if you purchase enterprise. It doesn't have to be on the store for you to install it on your phone. But you do indeed need to be part of the program.
ALee 18y ago
Does anyone know if this was a problem for Facebook when the apps were released, or did it not matter because everything was recommended by your friends anyway?
witten 18y ago
Reminds me of game companies that distributed their shareware games with similar tactics via BBSs. You can even see vestigial evidence of this today. Check out the Apogee / 3D Realms download page (http://www.3drealms.com/downloads.html http://www.3drealms.com/downloads.html), and note the non-insignificant number of filenames that start with the number 1. This caused the files to sort first on most BBSs.
pskomoroch 18y ago
Amazon does the same thing with Mechanical Turk Qualification Tests (Only has A-Z sorting): http://www.mturk.com/mturk/findquals?requestable=false&earned=false http://www.mturk.com/mturk/findquals?requestable=false&e...
trezor 18y ago
I say Apple has done a wonderful job doing input validation on their AppStore data right here. I wonder if you can name your Application as a SQL injection as well.
Tichy 18y ago
Is that the fantastic marketing Apple promised for iPhone applications - show them in an alphabetically sorted list?
tstegart 18y ago
I think it's been fixed, at least with respect to spaces. I checked, and many of their applications don't come up as having spaces anymore.
devicenull 18y ago
This has been a problem in every online game with a serverlist that I know of.. It's quite funny as it's gotten extreme enough that some of the names are just spaces.

32 points by nickb 18y ago

I'd sink them to the bottom of the list, no less. As well as fixing the problem, of course.

So they trim non-alphanumeric chars - how long before we see AAAJirbo Break. They should disable alphanumeric sorting and instead sort by date (newest), rating (popular) etc. Good faceted navigation would likely remove the desire to sort by name.

nickb 18y ago
Amazon does exactly that and so do many other web stores. Alphanumeric listing will probably be taken out of AppStore.
cstejerean 18y ago
You're right, little reason to sort by name. I can use search to locate an app if I know the name, and when I'm just browsing sorting by popularity or reviews would be more helpful. On the other hand when I see "!! asdfasdf" and "AAAasdfasdf" I know it's likely a terrible app so I don't even have to bother checking it out.

tlrobinson 18y ago

appName.trim() or equivalent.

henning 18y ago

It's time for Apple to exercise their proprietary software/benevolent dictator/gatekeeper abilities and drop all this shit like a bad habit.

nickb 18y ago

Pretty shady company... no about us page, no corporate info, no address on the contact page, no privacy policy, no terms of service and their WHOIS entry is anonymized by Domains by Proxy.

davidu 18y ago

Apple will fix this.

tocomment 18y ago

By the way, can I sign up and make an iPhone app now, or is there still a waiting list and approval process?

silencio 18y ago
there's still an approval process for most steps, but it seems now most people who've applied are getting acceptance into the program itself. now, getting your app into the app store and upgrading your apps is a slightly different process, and it looks like there's a huge backlog there :(
- tocomment 18y ago
  If I just want to write a program for my own iPhone, do I still have to get them to put it in the store, just for me to be able to install it on my phone?
  - silencio 18y ago
    no, there's something called ad hoc distribution that lets you run your app on up to 100 phones on the standard program...I think more if you purchase enterprise. It doesn't have to be on the store for you to install it on your phone. But you do indeed need to be part of the program.

ALee 18y ago

Does anyone know if this was a problem for Facebook when the apps were released, or did it not matter because everything was recommended by your friends anyway?

witten 18y ago

Reminds me of game companies that distributed their shareware games with similar tactics via BBSs. You can even see vestigial evidence of this today. Check out the Apogee / 3D Realms download page (http://www.3drealms.com/downloads.html http://www.3drealms.com/downloads.html), and note the non-insignificant number of filenames that start with the number 1. This caused the files to sort first on most BBSs.

pskomoroch 18y ago

Amazon does the same thing with Mechanical Turk Qualification Tests (Only has A-Z sorting): http://www.mturk.com/mturk/findquals?requestable=false&earned=false http://www.mturk.com/mturk/findquals?requestable=false&e...

trezor 18y ago

I say Apple has done a wonderful job doing input validation on their AppStore data right here. I wonder if you can name your Application as a SQL injection as well.

Tichy 18y ago

Is that the fantastic marketing Apple promised for iPhone applications - show them in an alphabetically sorted list?

tstegart 18y ago

I think it's been fixed, at least with respect to spaces. I checked, and many of their applications don't come up as having spaces anymore.

devicenull 18y ago

This has been a problem in every online game with a serverlist that I know of.. It's quite funny as it's gotten extreme enough that some of the names are just spaces.