One of the many issues plaguing the App Store for Apple’s iPhone platform is that of ‘app spam’. Now that Palm is busy dotting the i’s of its own offering, the App Catalog, discussions have erupted about how Palm should combat this problem – if at all.
Money is to be made with the App Store. There are countless stories of iPhone developers making a pretty buck publishing applications in the App Store, which is of course a good thing. However, whenever money’s involved, things always go bad. “App spam” is when a developer releases as many variants of the exact same application as possible, hoping to get noticed.
Obviously, this clogs up the pipes, and as your application store grows, this problem only gets worse. Anyone who has ever spent some time perusing the massive listings of applications in the App Store knows what I’m talking about.
Luckily, there are various ways to combat this problem, and now that Palm is in the final stages of finishing its own App Catalog for the webOS, developers at Palm’s forums are discussing the options Palm has. Palm of course has the option to simply ban this kind of behaviour, but Chuq Von Rospach, Palm’s Developer Community Manager, disagrees with that idea.
“Rhetorical question – who do you want to decide what you can buy? Do you want to make that decision yourself? Or do you want someone else to start making that decision for you?” Von Rospach says, “And if you do start letting someone else make that decision, what’s your recourse when that other entity starts making decisions you don’t like?”
Von Rospach further explains that it is better to let the market decide. “If people don’t buy them, the developer won’t make money. If the developer won’t make money, they’ll stop doing it. Fact is, people are buying them. Enough for it to be profitable for the developer? You’ll have to ask the developer,” he states.
I think this is a very practical and good way to approach this problem – and the App Catalog in general. Palm has a set of clear rules for the App Catalog, and there’s really no benefit to arbitrary rejections – as evidenced by Apple’s App Store and the negative PR arbitrary rejections have caused there. In the meantime, Palm is also implementing something that might combat this problem anyway: a 50 USD fee per application might discourage developers from employing the app spam strategy.
How do you all feel about this?
I haven’t given it much thought, but I do like the sounds of having to lay down some money to submit an app if you know that rejections are not going to occur like the iTunes App Store.
There needs to be some personal grab on some of the developers out there that are pumping out a hundred apps a year that have very little purpose.
One of the reasons I liked using MacOS was that there was way less shareware out there, so while you had limited choice the apps available were generally good or easily defined. Suddenly the App Store is bringing a small piece of the Windows ecosystem over by making it easy for anyone and their sink to write an app!
So people complain about Apple being too limiting in what they will and won’t allow in the app store, and now we’re complaining that they allow too many of a similar type of app?
First, I’m not sure Apple nor Palm should try to fight “app spam.” It’s not, after all, as if you have to install these thousand different flashlight apps and, hell, if someone really thinks they can do a flashlight better than the last one why not? Maybe it’s just the way I use the app store, but I almost never see these worth-nothing apps as I usually know what I’m looking for and just do a search. If I’m looking for a SIP client, for example, that’s what I search for. In Apple’s case, in particular, if they tried to handle this in any way then everyone, and I bet those at osnews would be among them, would leap all over them saying they’re trying to assert even more control, etc etc. But of course, we know darling Palm can’t do anything wrong here…
Bottom line, there’s no real reason to fight it. Eventually, if their apps make no money because they duplicate everything that came before and add nothing, developers will eventually give up. I, personally, don’t think anyone should be limiting what types of apps that can be submitted. Of course, as an iPhone user, I knew that caveat going in but that doesn’t mean I like it.
When we need to worry, however, is if we ever start seeing crapware show up on the iPhone/Pre/Android like we see on Windows (both Mobile and PC). At the moment, crap apps are optional. If and when these newer handset makers or phone carriers start shipping these crap apps preloaded on their devices for money, then we’ve got a real problem and then we can talk about “app spam.”
Edited 2009-12-22 20:06 UTC
[q]So people complain about Apple being too limiting in what they will and won’t allow in the app store, and now we’re complaining that they allow too many of a similar type of app?/q]
Agreed. In one breath Thom you are talking about Apple being restrictive in what they allow on the App store and praising Palm for not putting restriction in place, then in the next breath you are suggesting that stopping developers from putting certain types of apps on there could be a good thing. Huh?
App spam has been a part of Windows for years, and has been used as a marketing tool. “You have soooo much more choice on Windows!” Yet in the 25 years I’ve been using Macs I’ve never been wanting for an application that I could get on Windows. And now that Apple can make the same claims for the iPhone that the Windows fraternity has been touting for years it’s “app spam”. Give us a break.
Look, despite the negative press that sites like this have given the App Store the general public couldn’t give a rats arse – if they know at all – about what you see as massive issues surrounding it, and have made it a run-away success for Apple. If Palm’s policy is good it will stand on it’s own merits and their App Catalog will be successful too. Lets hope for their sake it is…
Those statements don’t necessarily contradict each other – if anything it’s the opposite, since many of the complaints about the app store approval process have focused on how arbitrary and inconsistent the decisions have been. If Apple is allowing “app spam” while rejecting other apps for much more minor/questionable infractions, then that’s just a further example of said inconsistency.
A previous OSNews story mentioned a problem with people claiming infringement and removing competitor’s apps from the App Store… I don’t think that kind of policing is right, and I don’t think this kind of policing will do much better.
I bet those soccer apps really are identical minus team name/logo, but if you have an automated routine trying to weed those out you’re asking for trouble with false positives. I can see a crisis if it started labeling bug fix updates as duplicates, for instance.
While charging an application upload fee is a reasonable way to monetize Palm’s app store, I hope they don’t institute a $50 fee across the board. Many of the quality apps I use are free-as-in-liberty applications – such as Free42 – or at least cost-free. Either waive the $50 fee if the developer / packager charges nothing to download the application, or set the fee based on the price charged starting at $0 for “free”. Clearly, a few 99 cent apps won’t break any Pre or Pixi user; but I’d hate to lose the sense of community that profit-free sharing creates.
Open source developers do not have to pay the 50 USD, iirc.
My first thought with the mentioned posting fee was that it would deter free software development; who can afford a 50$ ticket for each no cost app posted? Good to hear that they are recognizing the difference and charging developers more applicably than a flat fee.
Simple. Encourage a culture of good software.
It’s for that reason that Mac OS X software is consistently better than Windows software, and Mac OS X doesn’t have the issue of “spam apps”.
Because Apple have treated their iPhone developers with such disregard, and made it financially risky to produce quality, expensive apps then Apple are just reaping what they’ve sown: Shovelware.