i think most free apps that employ that scheme make it quite clear how things are in their app description, don't they?

I have to say as a user I'm not super-keen on seeing apps distribution become more fragmented. I love the idea of one central store (or at most 2-3 counting jailbreak stores) – I don't want to have to start going to developers' sites to find good apps.

Great long rant! I don't have any solutions either for the worst issues – but agree it's in dire need of help.

Yeah – it does certainly seem that Apple makes it as difficult as possible in many ways for devs. I hope they become better at communicating with devs (and not just the huge publishers) and making some of this easier.

Lots of good points Lesley. I agree with pretty much all of that.

I personally feel Joshua is stuck in the mentality that many people in our country seem to be stuck in. They see problems with a particular area of subject and tend to compare it to old business models that used to work great and somehow come to the conclusion that the business model is the problem. I'm not insulting Joshua at all and I understand why he and many other incredibly intelligent people feel that way. I just personally think these people need to realize this is a completely new business model and it works. At least for now, it's working very well. Both well known developers and newcomers are able to make a great deal of money if they produce a quality product and market it half-decently. Due to the incredibly large audience, word of mouth is also giving both large and small developers a massive amount of free advertising.

That said, the App Store is in dire need of help. I completely understand the initial frustration Joshua was feeling which led him to come to these conclusions. I strongly disagree that the price point of apps is the problem. The problem is the terrible 'interface' that is the current App Store. I don't have a solution. If I did, I could probably make a lot of money implementing it in a website. Many people are trying, and some are starting to touch on the right ideas. Websites which have reviews (moderated unbiasedly), ratings, and communities where people can openly give their impressions are what is needed. The current App Store comment system is worthless. Most anybody with any experience browsing the App Store knows that the majority of comments are meaningless. They're posted by people that don't know what they're talking about or they're posted about a problem which has since been fixed in newer releases of the app. Not allowing the developers to interact with their users is by far one of the biggest problems and has been commented on by many developers in the past.

The approval process of course has many flaws, but that's been beaten to death and I won't bother getting into it here. The categories should probably be expanded even further than they have been. The search engine needs some serious work. Searching for the specific name of an app many times gives you completely worthless apps listed first just because they mention the app name you were searching for in their description. Browsing through the App Store is a terrible experience. Scrolling through app after app 25 at a time. No way to quickly 'star' or 'bookmark' an app to look at more closely later. No real way to find what you really want without getting lucky with searches or even luckier stumbling upon it while browsing.

Like I said, I don't have a solution, but it's blatently obvious the App Store was not designed for the incredible number of apps that it now contains. It needs a massive overhaul. Not only that, but developers need to realize the store is not an advertising medium. Claiming that they aren't getting the exposure they desire because they're getting crowded out by free apps is almost silly to me. If you want more exposure, like with any product since the beginning of time, you need to advertise. In many places. TV, websites, in other apps, blogs, twitter, etc. Every app I've seen use all these advertising mediums (many at no or very low cost), ends up getting a massive amount of exposure and makes a great deal of money. This is true for both App Store apps and jailbreak-only apps. The thing is, it is an easy platform to develop on. There is a lot of competition. If you write a crappy app, it will not end up getting the word-of-mouth advertising that is necessary.

Sorry for the long rant. Just bothered me a bit that somebody thinks removing the free apps is a good idea. Free apps are what make the iPhone what it is. Even developers releasing free apps are making a great deal of money when the app is good. Either through advertisements in said free app, or getting customers to buy their services once they use the app.

The problems I see so far for us as developers is:
– Not all iPhone users are reasonable, willing to pay, or willing to support developers for apps.
– Lots of them are not mature (if we consider some of the young population of iPhone users), and you know how most teenagers or kids think toward software (take a look at what happened to pirated software/games in Windows).
– But teens or kids, could be our most important consumers (that's why games sold a lot of units).
– Some people with a 99 cents app, could make it big while only spending very little time on development.
– Some serious developers like tapbots, at around 99 cents could also have a chance to "not" make it as big as them who's releasing a lower quality app.
– Some developers will be blamed for greed, if there are similar apps for free. Yes, some companies or devs don't charge users for their apps.
– Development efforts are "meaningless" in the eye of users or consumers. So they don't know whether an app is $4.99 because it requires considerable amount of efforts to develop, or whether it's over-priced.

It's just a very tough game for us especially indies, where we rely a lot on App Store purchase, instead of VC funding, or any other payment mechanism outside the App Store.

In-App purchase is a good and useful system, but it's quite hard to use this system for:
– Apps in their mature versions (needs code modifications, and various UI redesigns).
– Apps that would be crippled, if it's disabling some its features, before an upgrade.

Some users also complained about "being charged" for every feature upgrades.
If it's a game, book, or any content subscription, then it's suitable to use this system, other than that I'm not really sure.

The best improvement I would prefer so far is the usage of trial system for paid apps.

My view on paying for apps or not is that if I believe that the app provides me functionality and the app developer isn't making money off me in some other fashion, I am happy to pay. On the other hand, I would really never pay Amazon for the ability to shop from them from my iPhone. Nor am I willing to pay an entertainment company for the privilege of advertising their products to me.