Erica Sadun develops iPhone apps, has published a Developers Cookbook for the iPhone and a great user guide book on the iPhone, and writes for TUAW on iPhone and other subjects. She’s always been one of my favorite writers to follow.
She’s got a great post up at TUAW that outlines nine ways that Apple could improve the App Store. I’m not a developer, but I sympathize with a lot of the issues facing iPhone devs and think Erica’s suggestions, which were put together with input from a number of other devs, would make things a lot better.
Here are a couple of suggestions that seem particularly strong to me:
4. Offer Paid Upgrades
A paid upgrade path isn’t limited to feature enhancements though. Another App Store feature that would be welcomed by many developers is "TryWare", full featured software that times out after a certain amount of time. Once the application times out, a paid upgrade/in-app purchase path would restore full functionality to that application. As one developer imagined it, "Apps would grey out in Springboard. When users try to open them, a dialog would explain the timed-out state, giving them the option to unlock the app by buying it now."
6. Provide a public list of known rules and common-sense rejects
At this time, developers are scratching their heads about whether they can build applications called "XXX for iPad," or whether the use of iPad in the name will violate Apple branding issues. It would really help if Apple posted lists of noncontroversial, easy-to-follow rules (basically a technical requirements checklist) that would save developers time, and prevent them from wondering whether an app was taking a long time to come through the review process due to some issue with the marketing text or the name.The more rules published the better — it’s easier to comply with said rules when you know what rule book the other team is playing from.
That last one seems so obvious and easy. Comon Apple, at least make the rules of the game clear to the folks playing it.
Ultimately if Apple makes things better for developers, that should help us as users as well – as it should lead to devs having to spend less time messing around with dumb, procedural stuff and more time to create great apps.
Check out Erica’s full list at the link below – it’s a very good read:
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/03/23/iphone-devsugar-9-ways-apple-can-improve-app-store/
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