How selective is the App Store?
Published on 10 Jul 2008 at 1:59 am.
5 Comments.
Filed under appstore.
There are a few sites (arstechnica style linking) reporting that Steve Jobs said he was expecting the App Store to launch with 200 apps, but ended up with “over 500.” I know that sounds impressive, and in fact, Jobs himself is quoted as saying “This is the biggest launch of my career.”
Interesting. I still have to ask “why so few?”
After all, back in June, Jobs himself said (@3:46) that “we admitted 4,000 people to the [developer] program.” Moments before that he reminds us that the iPhone developer program began on March 6. That means that the July 7th deadline for getting apps listed for the July 11th launch of the App Store gave developers four months at most.
It is hard to know exactly how many unique developers have apps available in the App store. If each developer only had one app approved for the App Store then only 12.5% of those approved got listed. But we know that some developers have multiple apps available (left column; 1/3rd down.) We also know that some developers already had apps coded and available on Installer.app.
Given all we know about the level of development for iPhone the obvious question is why are there so few apps available. It’s gotta be…
- Apple can’t review these apps fast enough.
- Developers simply can’t get the code out the door soon enough.
- Apple is being extremely selective on which Apps get on the App Store.
If Apple couldn’t review Apps fast enough, how’d they more than double Jobs’ expectation? Or, why’d they admit so many developers? This reason seems extremely unlikely.
Developers may be working on some advanced things that do take time to develop. However a few developers that have Apps in “the store” started out with their apps on Installer.app.
I’m left with one conclusion; Apple is hand picking developers – and apps – for inclusion in the App Store.
So, really, how selective is Apple being with who gets to put an app in the App Store? We’ll likely never know, but my guess is extremely.
25,000 applied. 4,000 accepted. 500 apps. The weeding down process should not result in only one in 50 (at best) apps making it to the store. After all, those 25,000 developers represent at least $2.475 million in profit for Apple, even if they never produce an sellable app.
None the less, this is a great showing for Apple. It also shows who’s in control, and that’s Apple.
Tom Insam on 10 Jul 2008 at 3:23 am: 1
There are two apps on the store already that do nothing other than turn your phone into a flashlight, by displaying a big white rectangle. One of them is free. The other costs money.
How can this be considered ‘extremely selective’?
Alex Curylo on 10 Jul 2008 at 6:21 am: 2
It’s #2. But you’re underestimating the difficulty here. It took several betas for the tools to get up to scratch, plus there’s a big learning curve of getting your libraries Cocoa Touch compliant before you can get accustomedly productive with even smaller apps, plus — and this is the biggie, really — the NDA we’re all working under means developers can’t share code or tips with each other on mailing lists and the like so far. This is A Very Bad Thing for productivity.
Once people have got that initial curve out of the way, and we’re allowed to talk and share code, you’ll see the pace of releases *really* pick up within a few weeks, I have no doubts.
James Katt on 10 Jul 2008 at 6:26 am: 3
Yeah! App!
Go Apple!
I want my iPhone 3G Now!
TuCats on 10 Jul 2008 at 6:58 am: 4
I have to say I don’t think that it’s that Apple is being too selective… there are some remarkably dumb applications in the store, such as “Practice how long you can keep pressing this button” which strike me as somewhat below El Jobso’s aesthetic threshold.
I think it’s much more likely that (a) developers didn’t get applications completed in time, or (b) it is taking longer to certify applications as ready to go on the store than expected - a bandwidth problem, not a selectivity problem.
Just my $0.02 worth.
Kholinar on 10 Jul 2008 at 7:28 am: 5
I doubt they’re weeding out much, other than maybe those that cause crashes or memory/battery hogs. The largest percentage of the apps on the store right now (it’s live) are web-based things that could be done before and cheap cash-ins like 19th century ebook apps for $.99.
I’ve found quite a few that I’m interested in, and have downloaded quite a few free apps… but most are trash.
So I think a lot of developers just haven’t released yet.