[augustus]

I have now two published apps in the App Store. Both business apps - one in finance and the other in business.

The biggest change they have made that took me off their platform was their recent policy to not show updated applications along with new releases.

Let me explain. For the longest time, if you looked under released applications you could see applications that were recently updated. This was a great incentive for developers of existing applications to keep updating their applications and getting it easily noticed by users.

Apple no longer allows updated applications to be displayed in the released applications list.

There is now no way for users to discover your application except for about one or two days when it is first released.

[CamperBob]

This was a great incentive for developers of existing applications to keep updating their applications and getting it easily noticed by users.

It was also a great incentive for developers to game the system and swamp the reviewers by submitting trivial updates every week to keep their apps at the top of the list. Tragedy of the commons.

[philwelch]

Actually, I think it's a positive thing to the user, since it encourages incremental development. Anything that incentivizes "release fast and iterate often" incentivizes good development.

On the other hand, it did tend to swamp the review process.

[augustus]

The lesser evil would have been to allow everyone an update at least once a month.

The current app store policies encourage developers to iterate apps i.e develop a bunch of apps in a month or two and hope one or two of them shoot to the top.

Developing compelling desktop level full featured apps over the long run are discouraged.