http://www.10000iPhoneApplications.com

Also, I wrote one of the tip calculators and I’m not offended by the jabs. Although it was not approved before launch day, it was submitted several weeks before. Seeing how saturated the market is now, I would question why someone would submit a new tip calculator (or flashlight) at this point. BTW, I’ve got another app coming that is NOT a flashlight!

But yes, for now the top 100 is directly correlated to exposure and sales, and it’s not growing, while the number of apps is, so this situation is in my opinion slowly unraveling. (100/~7500 paid apps now is 1.3% of all apps. That compares to August, when it was more like 100/1000 paid apps, aka 10%. That’s a pretty astounding change in just a few short months.

I really don’t know what could be done though, beyond direct intervention from above.

So I guess part of the problem is indeed the mediocre noise you allude to (I take issue to the word “static” in light of criticism of my Shush app ;) ), and in particular how it’s not being balanced by any mechanism other than the relatively tiny “top apps” section which tends to remain pretty, umm … static over time.

Other than that, unless you know exactly what you are looking for, it’s nearly impossible to find, and it doesn’t help that there is indeed a lot of static from mediocre apps. Let’s hope Apple has something up their sleeves.

It’s a provocative point. Shush is not the flashiest app, or one that best highlights the variety of things that is possible with the phone. But it achieves what I set out to do, which is “generate white noise with a minimum of UI complexity and without using long recorded loops.”

It’s certainly fair to question whether my app is “one of the crap apps,” but of course from my own perspective, it isn’t. It does something useful and satisfies requirements that no other app does.

I find that many apps on the store don’t achieve even that.

I accept your points, that perhaps my negative attitude about it isn’t helping anybody. Also, it’s certainly possible that my criticisms of a majority of apps on the store is not shared by the typical iPhone user.

Daniel

I have nothing against those sorts of apps. However, where I would feel a bit snarky is that if I bring up, say, Android, everyone will talk about the 10,000 apps available compared with the significantly smaller number of apps available for Android.

However, if I bring up the fact that there are more Windows apps than Mac apps, I’ll get an earful about how that doesn’t really matter and that Mac apps are somehow better than their Windows counterparts.

In other words, the fact that, say, half the applications in the iTunes App Store are useless is unimportant. The fact that half the applications for Windows are useless is important, though.

If this is the nice, open, friendly community I’ve been led to think it is, these new apps should be embraced, improvements suggested, their developers welcomed…

While I do appreciate the link, shouldn’t people who live in glass houses not throw stones?

With all due respect, doesn’t your app, Shush, fall into the same category of apps that you’re ranting about here?

I’m making this point because I’ve actually been disappointed with what most long-time Mac devs have come up with so far for the iPhone. Granted, some have stepped up to the plate (Pangea and Freeverse seem to be the highest profile) but most seem to be overshadowed by newcomers. I was expecting a lot more from the devs who’ve made a name for themselves in the Mac world to have some impact in the App Store by now.

John Casasanta
tap tap tap… MacHeist… long-time Mac dev