Six things that are wrong with the iPhone App Store

The App Store is a great concept, and I’ve downloaded some classy applications for the iPhone already, but there are some fundamental flaws which stop it from being brilliant. Here’s my take on the six things that are wrong about the App Store in its present form. Whether they’ll ever be “fixed” is another matter.

1. No trial / preview versions

There’s no official way to trial a piece of software before paying for it This isn’t a problem for free applications, because all you lose by downloading something you don’t like is a little time and bandwidth, but for paid-for applications it’s an issue, and the more expensive something is, the bigger the monetary risk. Of course, you take the same kind of risk if you buy a physical off-the-shelf copy of software for your PC, but the fact that the entry-level criteria for iPhone apps — price for developers to participate in Apple’s programme, and quality of applications developed — is much lower means you’re more likely to download a dud. Some developers try to get around this “problem” by releasing a free “lite” version of their software, and a more feature-rich standard version that they charge for. However, not only does this rile a number of users (as can be seen from the reviews) but it still doesn’t offer a direct trial of the software. The only way to legitimately run applications from the App Store is via iTunes, so I don’t believe it would be technically difficult to allow software to be downloaded for a trial period, then either wiped, disabled, or charged for. Each iPhone has a unique ID and each user has a unique iTunes account log in. Why not? Perhaps both Apple and developers are worried that, by giving users free trials of software, it will become apparent that a lot of the software just isn’t up to scratch. There’s an easy solution to that… Developers should write better software, and Apple should raise the entry bar. More of that later…