“Much like discovering a BFG 900 weapon in the latest edition of Doom, a featured placement in a mobile app store can do wonders for a product’s downloads and sales,” Ewan Spence writes for Forbes. “A recent report from App Annie highlights the impact that a featured placement can have on the success of an app. ‘…[App Annie‘s results] suggest that the featuring periods examined were responsible for a median increase in downloads of around 80%, but many increased downloads by 500% or more.'”
“That means there is a huge amount of power vested in the decision-making process about who gets to be featured,” Spence writes. “This is how companies can effectively impose their views on what makes a good app or game for their individual platforms.”
“The major developers know just how important promotion can be, and will ensure their apps will meet the criteria,” Spence writes. “Smaller developers need to consider just how much effort they will make to try to gain favour, or if they will tread a lonely road that relies on external user-acquisition strategies.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Featured apps in Apple’s App Store all have one thing in common — they offer unique value to users. Apple’s editors look for high-quality apps across all categories, with a particular focus on new apps and apps with significant updates.
There is no paid placement or checklist of requirements — Apple bases their decisions on a variety of factors, including:
• User interface design: the usability, appeal, and visual quality of the app
• User experience: the efficiency and functionality of the app
• Innovation: apps that solve a unique problem for users and take advantage of the latest Apple technologies
• High-quality and relevant localizations
• Integration of accessibility features
• A strong App Store product page
• UniquenessFor games, Apple editors also consider:
• Gameplay and level of engagement
• Graphics and performance
• Audio
Yep. Developers, you read that write. You know those error messages about unlabeled buttons? Yeah, that’s one of the reasons. Read, kids.
Apple doesn’t properly identify buttons in iOS. It is infuriating to experience the creeping degradation of the user interface since iOS 7, as if some indifferent god of minimalism were experimenting on us en masse.
I understand that pressure had built up for Apple to abandon its skeuomorphic icons and textures and “go modern” but that was bullshit all along. It wasn’t broke and didn’t need fixing. Now it has all sloughed out of the trough and we have a royal Augean mess, requiring the talents of Hercules to clean up.
This needn’t have happened. Scott Forstall had kept Jony Ive’s tendencies to preciousness in check, but his ouster at the hands of anointed CEO Tim Cook dashed consumer hopes and led to the Era of Thinness at the Expense of Useability. Choosing between two men who couldn’t get along, I think Cook went with hardware over software, and we’ve paid the price ever since.
Apple also pays attention to reviews of apps and winners of competitions between apps from various sources, including at the WWDC, when choosing what to feature.
If Apple ever goes the way of the US government and promotes apps according to who throws them the most money, I will be MOST displeased.
Thankfully, Apple has figured out and negated the gimmickry whereby scum developers bombard app pages with fake positive reviews (à la MacKeeper).