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The App Store hit 25 billion downloads yesterday
Yesterday TechCrunch broke the news that Apple has acquired Chomp. What is Chomp? It’s an application store directory. It lets you search and discover apps using keywords in a way that seems to work better than how each marketplace works. Sometimes when searching for apps people type categories or random keywords instead of the app’s name because they’re not easy to remember. Chomp provides search results in a much more meaningful way than iTunes’ App Store can.
Apple’s own App Store has been criticized for lack of app discoverability when apps fall off the top 20 list or the App Store lobby so it’s great news for Apple that the team behind Chomp is now working on improving iTunes. It sucks to be an Android user who uses Chomp because this means it will cease to be a separate, independent search engine especially since Chomp’s team has already been working at Apple for a while.
Wired has a story on how Chomp can improve the App Store.
2010: Gawd, App Store approvals take FOREVAR.2011: Wow, App Store approvals are fast now!2012: JESUS CHRIST THE SCAM APPS
— Chris Rawson (@rawsoncj) February 21, 2012
TUAW’s Chris Rawson illustrates the state of the App Store from 2010.
The guys at Impending paint a gloomy picture for the App Store, specifically Apple’s, although the same underlying concerns can be said about other application marketplaces. After four years in operation, the App Store now lists over half a million apps.
With a limited number of app reviewers coupled with Apple’s insistence on reviewing each app before publication, having a large number of scam apps and knockoffs is almost inevitable and some copyright infringing apps not only make the cut but ran all the way to the bank. Hands up if you thought Instagram had released an app for Android some weeks ago.
