[dmlorenzetti]

acknowledgement of all the undeniably great things about the App Store from the perspective of users and developers

As a user, I shudder anytime I have to interact with the App Store. Even when it works flawlessly, there is nothing interesting or pleasing about it. And most of my interactions with it leave me with a mild feeling of having being bullied about.

I had much rather install software via Homebrew than the App Store.

[quantified]

Similar. App Store is a central control point. You’re shopping at the company store. Maybe I want software that doesn’t meet the central authority’s criteria. I have the freedom to choose at a large grain (Android vs Apple, Windows, Linux, Apple) and thank goodness. Once I’m into the next layer, I don’t.

Interesting that so many people have bought into a very un-free market.

[RikNieu]

What specific interactions make you feel this way?

[askjdlkasdjsd]

I'm a software developer myself. For me, its more like a disengagement from the whole thing.

Do you remember when android/ios were new and there were all new and fun games coming out like angry birds and such? Everyone was into it for a couple years.

Now, if you look at those same games (or even apps from the same era), every single thing about them is made to suck money out of you. It just does something to you, and I've noticed this in most people I know too, it just makes you sick.

Rather than constantly worrying about how not to be a sucker when searching for a new app, I now frequently decide that whatever it was that I wanted to do, I could do some other way or not do at all rather than be subjected to the constant victimization by aggressive monetization everywhere you look.

The hard truth that we, the tech industry, are currently not accepting, is that the value of a lot of the software out there, is actually zero or close to it. The industry has matured. Commoditization is imminent.

Software will be like auto, energy, medicine. Just another industry. Software developers will be like plumbers, advertisers, electricians - It'll be just another trade, but the past gold rush and the remaining few nuggets still out there will blind us all to this fact for the next decade at least.

[Rotten194]

Some anecdata on this point; I've tried two times to find a decent solitaire app on the app store. I don't play solitaire that often, it helps to pass the time occasionally, so I don't need something particularly complex or featureful.

Every app I could find had some dark pattern or an overflow of ads or both. Some kind of streak system where you were encouraged / nagged to play every day or else lose your "coins" (aka preying on loss aversion to try and addict players), fullscreen interstitial ad pages that try to trick you into clicking them when you're moving cards? Animated banners that distract you from the game?

I ended up giving up and just using a web version. It's not perfect, it's made for desktop and the cards are really small on my iphone 6 and the UI is hard to use, but it's clearly someone's labor of love and a lot pf care has been put into it. I'd happily pay a few dollars for it, if it wasn't free.

There's not many apps like that on the App Store nowadays. And with Apple's predatory rent-seeking practices, requirements of owning a $2000 computer to develop for their platform, and high developer fees, they aren't helping the situation.

[ohazi]

> Every app I could find had some dark pattern or an overflow of ads or both.

This is one of the reasons I strongly prefer using open source software whenever possible. The program was written because somebody wanted it to exist, not because someone was trying to trick you or hold your work hostage for a few bucks.

[unhammer]

I think the No-Bullshit games db https://nobsgames.stavros.io/ was made because of this kind of frustration

[forgotmypw17]

I haven't dug deep on this, but I bet the following URL will offer some helpful ideas:

https://www.google.com/search?q=ios%20solitaire%20reddit

Here is the best looking one from the first thread Google returned for me:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/solitaire-decked-out-ad-free/i...

[Rotten194]

Thanks, it's ok, no ads, but it has coins and lootboxes and daily rewards, so still far from ideal. I understand developers gotta eat but it's still frustrating.

[theturtletalks]

Apple just has to open up the Webkit to support more features so people can just use PWAs. Apple drags their feet because they know once PWAs take over, their app store profits will drop significantly.

[fierarul]

> Every app I could find had some dark pattern or an overflow of ads or both.

Apple's ecosystem evolved towards a 'market for lemons'.

[jacobn]

Add to that: software has built in global competition, whereas most other trades are inherently local.

While Developer demand has thus far outstripped supply, that gravy train will eventually slow down.

It’s been one heck of a ride, and it’s gone on for decades, but how many more? Enough to recommend it to your kids?

[forgotmypw17]

I used to use iOS daily, now it's a couple times a week, and almost never the App Store, just Safari. But here is what I remember when it was my primary mobile device, plus primary upgrader on several family iPads:

a) Many interactions with the app store app were of the type where the app wants me to do something I had no thought or motivation or desire to do when I set out to do what I was doing. Does that make sense?

I think interactions can be split into two categories: user asks for something they want of the software, and, software asks something it wants of the user. There were many interactions of the second variety.

b) Unlike many other Apple apps which were about as responsive as one can imagine, and maybe a little more, most app store actions were of the "tap button and watch spinner for as long as it takes for an https round trip + data download from the server", which can be anything from a second to timed out.

c) The search and browse rarely provided any value to me. My typical path for finding an app was to search for "ios music calendar app reddit", last year, and read through those threads, and then follow the links directly to iTunes store.

[tarsinge]

And that’s despite Apple efforts to keep the quality high. How are your feeling when using the Android App Store?

[frosted-flakes]

Honestly, it's great. There are a ton of high quality apps on the Google app store, and it's pretty easy to spot the bad ones and pass them by (the quality and polish of the app icon is a reliable indicator of the app's quality). And when I can't find what I need, I do an Internet search, and I might download someone's open source app on GitHub.