We have seen several changes in iTunes App Store policies this year. When inApp purchase was first introduced  it was only available for paid apps, so developers had to distribute a free version for best proliferation and a paid version to utilize inApp purchase; essentially doubling the number of apps and the work load for Apple’s approval team. Once everybody had his paid version out, some like us after a rather long wait for the approval to be precessed, you guess it right: Policies changed and free app could feature inApp purchase.

The next move was rather frustrating, I believe all developers suffered, the store designed changed to a new cool design but the same time the store entrance page changed and there was no more category view, it was replaced by “Top Grossing” and it became and still is difficult to navigate the app store. Not all is lost, click on http://itunes.apple.com/us/genre/mobile-software-applications/id6005?mt=8 and most likely you still get a proper category view.

Now, and that’s why I wanted to write this entry, you see yet another trend. The most exciting time for a developer is when his app is first launched. It will show up on the new release page and will usually attract an immediate peak in downloads. But until few weeks ago every app-update did show up on the new release page and so you have seen developers frequently updating their apps with “bug fixes”.  Another approach was to release 150 “localized” apps to all app store globally, apps like the-best-car-wash-location-in-Seatle, the-best-car-wash-location-in-Denver. Once we got swooshed off the crucial new-release page in 15 minutes or so by such tactics. I have not seen an official reaction from Apple (to our complains) but these app have stopped coming.

So what is the latest trend? Updates do no longer show up on the new release page! Now we see the influx of new-releases in the sense of the-best-car-wash-places app gets and overall new release as the-best-car-wash-and-polish-places add. So the number of app will again double or triple in a short time before Apple will react.

We reached almost end this year, overall we see things on the App store have getting better, particular the approval process has been apparently improved dramatically over the past few weeks. We will keep you posted, the iTunes App Store is never boring!

Martin Feuerhahn

View all posts by Martin Feuerhahn
Martins website

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