I was having a conversation with my best friend and we came to the realization that there are only a few different types of apps. We were talking about apps that just contain information about someone from their personal blog; a business card app of sorts. This seems like an excellent idea considering that the iPhone and iPod Touch have an installed base of 70 million devices and with the advent and release of the upcoming iPad, that user base will surely grow as it will support apps right out the gate.

The other thing we noticed is that there are only a few different types of apps on the appstore. A lot of people will debate this, but when you go to the release list and look at what is being released, you’ll see mainly ‘smut apps’; apps that feature scantily clad women. Or you’ll see apps from a developer that is clearly just renaming their app and releasing it again; the buckshot approach. My app will be out there, but it will thirty clones with very similar names. The fireworks app is a prime example, AAA fireworks or A-1 fireworks. The studio/person that released this collection of apps should have their developer license revoked.

It would be good if the smut apps could get their own category so that the other categories could be free of the filth. It detracts from the rest of the apps that actually deserve to be there. Another feature that would be neat to have is that of a developer rank; people can rank the entire suite of apps that are produced/released from a given developer. This would allow people to clearly see that what the developer has done and what their quality is.

The app store that Apple has set up is a very closed system that is filled with many perils. As a developer for the iPhone and iPod touch, I have seen many of these woes. From the build process to the actual approval process, no area is without its problems. The ‘recently released’ area, which can be found by drilling down a category while in the app store app on the device, is one of those problems. This list was also the main area that developers were actually guaranteed to be in upon the release of their app. The loophole was closed a few weeks ago and now the list only represents the recently released apps that are brand new to the store. Below is my story about how I stumbled upon the change.

The app store ‘Release Date’ list was recently frozen and in severe disarray. By frozen, I mean that the list was filled with apps that had dates ranging from November 12th to December 1st. The mayhem started on thanksgiving and appears to be settled now as the recently released list has its normal assortment of apps from the current day.