onilecraM | Marcelino

Interesting take from Pinch Media and Gizmodo on the life of the iPhone app.

Sure, it’s kinda bleak (especially as an iPhone developer), but one has to believe that the extreme amount of clutter and the less than ideal searching mechanism of the App Store is contributing to this problem.

Add to this the difficult nature of updating apps, the review system that doesn’t take into account subsequent app versions, and a portion of users who will write reviews not relevant to the apps, and it’s no wonder the app life-cycle is so short.

Will this change? Absolutely. Competition from Nokia and Android will help mature the mobile development community (both from the development side as well as the end-user side). In addition, Apple will probably enhance the App Store, improve the ratings system, and eventually offer more transparency and tools to trusted developers whereby certain elements of the review process (hi, it’s been 4 weeks since we submitted Boombox version 1.1) will become easier to overcome.