Let's say you need to buy a flashlight for a camping trip. You head to your local outdoor store, the only outdoor store around, the one where they claim to have everything. When you get there and ask the sales associate for a flashlight, he doesn't show you a small selection or even a whole aisle of flashlights, but instead takes you to a warehouse where they have dozens of flashlights waiting for you.
"But which one is the best? Which is the one I need?" You ask. The sales associate dutifully points out the hundred or so that have received 5 star reviews, but some of those reviews look suspect, and they aren't exactly coming from trusted sources. Some of the flashlights are expensive, some are so cheap they're almost free. Some aren't even flashlights at all, but rather strobe lights, LED signs, or other similar gadgets, all housed in the flashlight warehouse.
Search the Apple iPhone App Store for "Flashlight" and you get 94 results. Sure, some of them are flashlights, and most of them will do the job you're looking for, but which is the best one? Who knows. And that's just for an app that turns your screen bright white. Suppose you want a To Do List? A diet management tool? A game of chess? Search for "Chess" on the App Store, and you get 184 listings.
This isn't how a real store works, and it isn't how the iPhone App Store should work, either. At a real store, a buyer or manager picks and chooses the best products, and that's what the store sells. If a product isn't good enough, or if it doesn't sell well, the manager replaces it with something better, or works with manufacturers to improve it. No store manager in her right mind, even at large box retailers and wholesale warehouses, would offer 184 different Chess games. She would offer a few good ones, some variety, and maybe a unique sample here and there. That's how the iPhone App Store should work as well.
Of course developers would be up in arms over this suggestion, especially as the mass of rejections get handed down from Cupertino. But that's how capitalism works; that's how a real store works. If there are already 10 flashlights available that work just as well as yours, or better, you don't get to sell another flashlight just because you managed to screw a bulb on top of a tube with some batteries in it. If you have a spring loaded snap attached to a piece of wood there's no guarantee that stores will sell it unless it is, in fact, a better mouse trap.
Not only will this be better for simpletons like us who can't decide between the 89 different To Do Lists available on the App Store. It will be better for developers. The best developers will stand out from the crowd, and they will be able to actually make money off their apps, instead of engaging in price wars and name games to get a buyer's attention. In the end, we think buyers would be willing to pay more than $1 or so for an app if they know what they are getting has been screened by a responsible store manager. This could bring value back to mobile apps on both sides, the developer side and the user side, and value has been sorely missing from the App Store of late.
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