App Store: Lottery or Bubble Either Way It Is Tough To Make It Work These Days

Posted on 07 November 2009, at 11:19 am, by Dan Cohen

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I spent a year running, and being the primary writer for, a site devoted specifically to iPhone apps. I remember the mad rush when the App Store first went on line. Populating the database had to be done by hand since the App Store wasn’t easily copyable, and no RSS feeds of new apps were yet available. The process was painful. Copy the app’s information, grab a screen-shot, grab a link to its location in the App Store, put all the data into the site’s database.

I sent the better part of four days of my summer vacation manually putting in all the apps that were there… all 552 of them.

Fast forward less than a year and a half and there are now more than 100,000 apps available in the App Store. That’s a pretty remarkable growth-rate. No, it is down-right unbelievable. It shows that Apple has hit a homerun with the iPhone/App Store combination. It could also, however, be Apple, and the iPhone’s Achelles heal.

I mean, how does a developer get noticed with 100,000 other apps vying for people’s attention… and money? And how do end-users find apps that are new, innovative and do what they need?

Earlier today a number of us had a conversation about some of the issues facing Apple in the months and years ahead. It began when Carly wrote–

I knew the App Store became a bubble when someone told me he intended to make a million dollars writing an app. Just like you could make millions in real estate, tech stocks, drilling for oil or by digging out west for gold. There is no way for everyone to enjoy that kind of success, and by the time the average person gets involved, the law of averages is against them (even before considering talent, etc). Welcome to the new gold rush!

This made sense to me. In fact my sister recently told me about a friend who has developed an app and was hoping to make it big. “Wish her luck”, I told Martha, “but tell her not to quit her day job just yet. Even if it is a great app she may be greatly disappointed.”

Michael put it into focus when he emailed-

He hasn’t seen any of those awful curves showing how only ~5% of apps actually sell?

iPhone newby but tech veteran Clinton noted-

There is no logical way to search for an application in the store. If you know a title or if the keyword you are searching for happens to be in the title you are in luck. But if you are looking for a “office communicator” client, good luck (there is one by the way — iDialog). The problem is that iTunes was built for searching music, not meta data that is in application descriptions.

This is a problem for end users but it’s a real problem for developers. There are 100,000+ apps in the store. How will anyone in the world find it in all of that unless they happen across a review or see it in the new section (which is highly selective and subjective)? My point is they won’t – and you become a digital carcass on the side of the iTunes App road.

I’m really surprised that developers haven’t complained about this more. Perhaps they have and I just don’t know it. But it is a serious limitation in my book for a developer being successful.

To which Michael responded,

I completely agree Clinton. I used to hit the app store weekly searching out new games by trolling the RPG and action and puzzle sections. Now? No way … I don’t even look unless someone tells me I should. And as you say, just looking is often not very helpful!

In response Clinton wrote…

I still think that there is tremendous value in the App Store itself. It laid a foundation which other platforms are just now able to even get online much less have a following. The problem though is it has outgrown the space it occupies. If they are going to keep trying to build out the App Store then they are going to have to tweak it to allow for more robust searching. The irony of ironies though is that it will likely cause a “relearning” of how we do things in iTunes – something that Apple hammers Microsoft for doing on a pretty routine basis.

From a developer perspective, they have to dam up the floodgates at this point. Everyone and their mother can develop on the platform now. That’s great to a point but it is rapidly spinning out of control with the constant flood of new applications. The illusion that Apple is under is that they DO control the App Store. The reality is they don’t. They own it but they don’t control it. Developers control it and if they leave then yes Dan, the bubble will burst. If however they re-establish guidelines for apps, limit the apps being developed or admitted (do we really need 50 different Twitter apps?) that will help. They also need to find a way to encourage the big developers to develop on the platform. Right now there aren’t that many really. Most of the developers are “home brew”. Again, that’s great to a point but we may be at a point that “home brew” can’t keep it going.

Which led me to conclude that while the App Store may or may not be a bubble that is about to burst, there are issues and Apple has a small window in which to fix them. One thing is for sure. Striking it big in the App Store is suddenly like playing the lottery. You have to play if you want a chance to win but if you do play keep thinks in perspective.

With over 100,000 apps and more coming every day, the odds of winning the App Store Lottery are bad… and they are getting worse every day.