Analysis: Android, the Land of the Free App

[furbearingmammal]

I actually saw someone say "don't rate an app 5 stars just because it does what you expect it to!" while giving a 3 star review of a simple program that did exactly what it promised, nothing more, with a simpler and cleaner interface than any other app in that category I'd ever used. I also agree that the majority of the low-star reviews are from idiots, disgruntled people, and bad downloads/installs/OS incompatibility. I actually saw someone complain about a program designed to run on Cupcake not having Apps2SD ability under a leaked FroYo build for their Droid.

Now, I'm broke, unemployed, and looking for work. If I could afford to buy some of these apps I would, but at the moment I'm living on the largess of a family member. As such, I've been making do with the free apps to date, but unless I'm doing a search or update I don't bother going to the market anymore. Slideshows of half-naked Asian women, soundboards, and ringtones from artists I wouldn't put on the stereo if I were trying to torture someone a la sleep deprivation, do not appeal to me.

As someone pointed out in another article I read here, in a direct comparison between the Market and the AppStore, does it really matter if one store has 250,000 farting apps and the other 100,000?

I'm anti-censorship to a high degree, but in this case how about limiting the number of apps any one party can submit to the store in a day to, say, two and a weekly limit of eight or something? If Google allowed for exemptions to this rule for developers who contacted them and cleared the apps first this wouldn't even be a problem for phone-specific apps being posted en masse. And how about making it mandatory for soundboards to be paid apps? This is a personal thing, though, as I think having twenty Family Guy soundboards is about thirty too many -- also see fart comment above. I have no problem with their being the sex apps, but how about an entire ADULT section that you have to prove you're 18/21 to get into and any app "mistakenly" posted elsewhere getting yanked immediately and if more than one gets posted banning the Dev from posting any more apps for a week with repeat offenders being banned for life? This wouldn't stop someone who was too dedicated, of course, but it would at least slow things down.

Just my two cents.

P.S. I always report the "go to X for free paid apps!" comments as spam too. It's the least I can do.

[aaf709]

To me the Market is like a food store. There is a lot of food there. Some of it is healthy for you, but there is a lot of junk food there too. I admit it's easier at a food store to discern which is which.

I suppose the iPhone Apps Store is more like a Health Food Store ("Chocolate? No, use Carob instead.").