Dear Tim,
You know the numbers better than anyone — I don’t need to quote them to you — but we all know that the iOS App Store is a veritable gold mine. Unfortunately, the App Store isn’t being mined in the best interests of Apple’s customers and developers, nor, in the end, in the interests of the company itself.
The App Store may be a gold mine, but it’s buried in an impenetrable jungle.
Instead of continuing with this complaint, I’ll offer a suggestion: Let humans curate the App Store.
Instead of using algorithms to sort and promote the apps that you permit on your shelves, why not assign a small group of adepts to create and shepherd an App Store Guide, with sections such as Productivity, Photography, Education, and so on. Within each section, this team of respected but unnamed (and so “ungiftable”) critics will review the best-in-class apps. Moreover, they’ll offer seasoned opinions on must-have features, UI aesthetics, and tips and tricks. A weekly newsletter will identify notable new titles, respond to counter-opinions, perhaps present a developer profile, footnote the occasional errata and mea culpa…
The result will be a more intelligible App Store that makes iOS users happier.
If I’m so convinced, why don’t I drive it myself? You might recall that I offered to do so — for free — in a brief lobby conversation at the All Things D conference a couple of years ago. The ever-hovering Katie Cotton gave me the evil eye and that was the end of the exchange.
I look back on my years at Apple with a certain affection, and would be happy to repay the company for what it did for me, so, yes, I would do it for free… but I can’t bankroll a half dozen tech writers, nor can I underwrite the infrastructure costs. And it won’t pay for itself: As an independent publication (or, more likely, an app) an App Store Guide isn’t financially viable. We know it’s next to impossible to entice people to pay for information and, as the Monday Note proves, I have no appetite for becoming a nano-pennies-per-pageview netwalker.
So, the App Store Guide must be an Apple publication, a part of its ecosystem.
Best,
JLG
