Outside the App Store

No matter how easy it makes purchasing and installing, there’s a huge role for marketing and word out mouth outside the App Store. Lukas Mathis writes:

The App Store on the iPhone is bordering on useless for discovering content. I mostly discover new apps outside of the App Store—friends show me apps on their phones, or I read about them on the web. Almost every time I’ve tried to find new apps by browsing the App Store, I have failed. For example, try searching for apps that help you keep track of your running. How many useless apps do you have to wade through until you find, say, the excellent Kinetic?

I have actually wasted a lot of time searching for such an app without finding anything good. After reading Mathis’ recommendation, I purchased Kinetic in under a minute.

Mathis also makes the point that Apple could have improved the installation experience for all applications:

Unfortunately, this improved user experience only seems to apply to apps sold in the App Store. It would have been great if Apple had solved this problem for everybody, rather than just for the developers who agree to give 30% of their revenue to Apple, and who will be accepted into the store.

But now Apple has the incentive to tie improvements to the Mac App Store, to encourage developers to give it a cut.