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It's stunning to me how the App Store has so many downloads and so much revenue and yet still is such a huge piece of trash. It needs to be much faster. It nee

by gfodor 13y ago

It's stunning to me how the App Store has so many downloads and so much revenue and yet still is such a huge piece of trash. It needs to be much faster. It needs to be more engaging. The search needs to be improved. The taxonomy needs a massive overhaul. Users need to be more encouraged to review apps and the review process itself needs to be overhauled. App sellers need to be able to perform legit SEO on their keywords and get insights into where their downloads are coming from. Even buying an app feels sluggish and unresponsive. The recommendation system is crap because they recommend similar apps not complementary apps. The whole thing is just begging to be rebuilt, it's basically the same as when it first launched. It's a huge optimization problem and it's absolutely embarrassing they are not constantly A/B testing, iterating, and improving the experience. It feels like they have no data science team at all working on this product. The fact that the App Store only changes with iOS updates shows they are approaching this product incorrectly. They should have dozens of experiments running all the time trying to drive up install rates. It's probably the biggest example I can think of where Apple really shows that they are unquestionably not Google. It's hard to underestimate just how much of a boost Apple will see if they actually build a real, first-class, fast shopping experience into the App Store.

PiersonBro 13y ago
I agree with your sentiment but be factually accurate if you've looked at the iOS 6 App Store on day one it would differ in a plethora of small details then the one we have now.
- gfodor 13y ago
  You might be right but until there is actual confirmation from Apple that they perform data-driven experiments to improve the App Store, based upon the many glaring problems that have been left unfixed for years I have to assume there isn't anybody at the switch performing legitimate experiments to drive these design changes.
hayksaakian 13y ago
> It's probably the biggest example I can think of where Apple really shows that they are unquestionably not Google. I think you give Google too much credit. The Play store is about as abysmal, sans the OS-tied updates. (Search, lists, SEO, etc. are BAD).
- gfodor 13y ago
  I wasn't comparing them in terms of app stores per se but the fact they don't really seem to be aggressively optimizing the UX on the store the way Google does with most of its (other) products. If Apple were doing it right, after this much time and this much data had been collected the App Store should basically be fast as hell and reading my mind when I log in, like Amazon does. I worked at Etsy for a number of years which has many similar attributes as the App Store, and lots of slow, steady progress was made by running many experiments and aggressively maintaining performance. I'd be licking my chops at the low hanging fruit if I were the one tasked with starting to hill-climb the App Store UX. There are so many things you could try, and with the type of traffic the App Store gets, 1% experiments could almost certainly get you sufficient data to really drive up conversion rates without negatively impacting many users along the way.
- ibrahima 13y ago
  Eh, I just got an iPad for my mom, after owning several Android phones and tablets, and my sister used to use an iPod touch as well. We both agreed that the App Store is a piece of trash. It's slow, confusing to navigate around, and doesn't auto update your apps (I think I heard that's coming in iOS7?). It looks the same as it did on my sister's old 2G iPod touch. Meanwhile, the Play Store search and navigation used to suck, but they've both improved a lot, and they keep the highlighted content fresh and relevant, which surprises me coming from Google (though not having used an iOS device extensively I don't know how often they update their featured content, but from this post it sounds like not often enough). They've fixed most of the stupid issues they had before and I actually like using it now.
  - fudged71 13y ago
    Plus they've now got that single sign-in feature which does make the installing process better. And you can download apps from the browser, rather than iTunes, meaning you can use any computer.
diziet 13y ago
This is part of the reason I'd started Sensor Tower, as the app store is very hard to succeed in from the developer's perspective.

by gfodor 13y ago

PiersonBro 13y ago

I agree with your sentiment but be factually accurate if you've looked at the iOS 6 App Store on day one it would differ in a plethora of small details then the one we have now.

gfodor 13y ago
You might be right but until there is actual confirmation from Apple that they perform data-driven experiments to improve the App Store, based upon the many glaring problems that have been left unfixed for years I have to assume there isn't anybody at the switch performing legitimate experiments to drive these design changes.

hayksaakian 13y ago

> It's probably the biggest example I can think of where Apple really shows that they are unquestionably not Google. I think you give Google too much credit. The Play store is about as abysmal, sans the OS-tied updates. (Search, lists, SEO, etc. are BAD).

gfodor 13y ago
I wasn't comparing them in terms of app stores per se but the fact they don't really seem to be aggressively optimizing the UX on the store the way Google does with most of its (other) products. If Apple were doing it right, after this much time and this much data had been collected the App Store should basically be fast as hell and reading my mind when I log in, like Amazon does. I worked at Etsy for a number of years which has many similar attributes as the App Store, and lots of slow, steady progress was made by running many experiments and aggressively maintaining performance. I'd be licking my chops at the low hanging fruit if I were the one tasked with starting to hill-climb the App Store UX. There are so many things you could try, and with the type of traffic the App Store gets, 1% experiments could almost certainly get you sufficient data to really drive up conversion rates without negatively impacting many users along the way.
ibrahima 13y ago
Eh, I just got an iPad for my mom, after owning several Android phones and tablets, and my sister used to use an iPod touch as well. We both agreed that the App Store is a piece of trash. It's slow, confusing to navigate around, and doesn't auto update your apps (I think I heard that's coming in iOS7?). It looks the same as it did on my sister's old 2G iPod touch. Meanwhile, the Play Store search and navigation used to suck, but they've both improved a lot, and they keep the highlighted content fresh and relevant, which surprises me coming from Google (though not having used an iOS device extensively I don't know how often they update their featured content, but from this post it sounds like not often enough). They've fixed most of the stupid issues they had before and I actually like using it now.
- fudged71 13y ago
  Plus they've now got that single sign-in feature which does make the installing process better. And you can download apps from the browser, rather than iTunes, meaning you can use any computer.

diziet 13y ago

This is part of the reason I'd started Sensor Tower, as the app store is very hard to succeed in from the developer's perspective.