Apple App Store Now Has Quality and Quantity
By: @Hilzfuld
The app industry is continuing to dominate the mobile world. With Android’s numbers continuing to grow rapidly both in terms of phones and apps, Apple has to stay ahead of the game somehow. As of now, Apple remains the unchallenged king of apps with 200,000 apps and counting. The Android Market, with its 20,000 apps cannot compare, but it is growing rapidly, which apparently had the Apple Folks worrying a little.
One of my big complaints about the Android platform is the abundance of app “junk” in the market. What I mean is that while Apple keeps a close look on what enters the App Store, Google took the anti-censorship road when it comes to the market. It is pretty clear from a basic search in the market that almost anything that will work on an Android phone is accepted into the market.
Let me just add that while the iPhone is one phone, which means that all apps in the App Store work flawlessly, Android is found on many difference devices each with their own specifications. Android phones come with different size screens, various processors, and capabilities. This has been known to cause some major problems for Android developers since an app that works on the HTC Magic will most likely not work properly on the Nexus One.
In addition to the lack of across the board compatibility, the App Market also has another serious disadvantage. While it is called the App Market, it includes so many other things besides apps, which causes confusion and frustration among consumers when searching for apps. Allow me to give you an example. I had heard about an app for Android that replaces the keyboard with a better one. It was to no surprise called “Better Keyboard”. When I searched the market for those words, I was surprised and disappointed to find thousands of results, none of which was the app I was looking for.
The results I was viewing were add ons to the app itself. These included skins, themes, and language packs, but the actual Better Keyboard app was nowhere to be found. With Google’s open policy with regard to Android, they seemed to have forgotten to keep some sort of a minimal order in the Market. Like I said, as long as it works on an Android phone, it will most likely be approved by Google.
This brings me to another point regarding inappropriate content. I know this is a debatable issue, but there has to be some sort of censorship when it comes to the kind of apps allowed in various app stores. With mobile phones’ growing popularity among kids, there is no justification for sexually oriented apps being offered with no security measures. One can argue that they should be allowed for the more mature audience, but there has to be some sort of identification process to ensure the age of the individual.
Apple seems to agree and they are now shifting their focus it seems, from quality to quantity. As of last week, Apple has deleted over 5,000 apps that contained explicitly sexual content. Once again, I am sure there are many people who will oppose this decision, but one thing is for sure, this is a major policy change by Apple, and one that will impact the entire app industry as well as the mobile software world as a whole.
An interesting angle on this new decision is that Apple actually deleted more apps from the App Store then its biggest competitor, BlackBerry, has in its entire App World. Bottom line is that as of now at least, Apple remains the undeniable and unchallenged king of apps, and that does not look like it will be changing any time soon.
What are your thoughts on the deletion of these apps by Apple? Should such apps be permitted in the App Store? Would love to hear your opinion in the comments.
