Yikes, too many updates were released today! One of my updates was approved this morning after two weeks. I thought, "Fantastic! It'll be seen in the New Releases going into the weekend." Eight hours later, it finally appeared in the Puzzles New Releases list...at #103. So no sales benefit at all, plus it'll get its excellent star rating reset, which is always a gamble. I hope this is just a result of tons of 3.0 compatibility fixes, and not some new system where updates appear in bulk a couple times a month.
my Planex planet lander is still in the review pipeline since now 2 weeks, but I assume they are really flooded by the 3.0 updates, hope this ends soon, so I can also proceed with my normal updates.
Well, our game update (Light Wars v1.2) got accepted today after 2 weeks and landed somewhere on 4th page of new releases immediately... too make matters even worse - 5 other similar games got an update at same time. ridiculous
A patch was finally approved on 4th of July weekend after a 18 days wait. At the same time I notice that pages of apps was also approved on the same date. It was buried 5 pages in the Release Date list. Sucks.
This is the now the last phase of the App Store. Everybody updating everything all the time hoping to boost sales. This won't work so I am wondering what's next.
This is hardly new, this tactic of continuous updates has been happening for years. What is different is the sheer number of developers now. It's basically supply and demand. With an enormous supply and limited demand prices have to go down, the only reason they don't go further than .99c is because of the artifical pricing structure Apple imposes on it. -ddn
The app store hasn't been around for "years" but you're right The problem with this last mass-update is that there will be a horrible ripple effect - I have no doubt that a crap load of devs who got buried will immediately submit bullshit "bug fix" updates - once again clogging the review process for the next 2 months... One way or another apple needs to fix this - they can start by listing apps by the minute or even the second they were added and not alphabetical by day They also need question and clamp down on bogus updates - fixing specific bugs is legitimate, but devs that continually list the only change as "bug fixes" are just being ****tards.
I definitly wait for the next submission, but our next Ports Of Call update shall come not too late (multiple language support etc.), we use the extra time for more testing -- I think this makes sense instead going back to this horrible pipeline at this moment. I will also use the time to prepare other updates.
At some point, economics is going to have to enter the equation. How about charging app developers a nominal fee, say $25-$100, for each app submission or update? The developer could choose a $25 within 30 days option or a $100 within 7 days option.
What an interesting idea! Even though my apps are designed to be updated with new content every few weeks, I'd still pay $25 per update, if it meant a reduction in review times and mass bogus updates. Of course, I'd also like to see a $100 charge per app submission, to cut down on the people who submit 200 variations of the same app.
Ehh.. Be prepared to see very, very few updates. I do this as a hobby, so getting into it for $100 was no prob. Having to pay for each submission/update would make me just stop.
I think an entry fee would cause devs to spend more time designing/testing/perfecting a game that doesn't require multiple updates to make it "worthy" (whatever that means) to the average customer, thus raising the overall quality of the App Store. I think everyone can agree that the store is becoming overwhelmed with junk. This would be one method that could stop that. It'd cause devs to think, "Can my game, in its current state, earn more than $100?" If you don't believe it, neither will customers. If your goal isn't to make money, make it free, which should have no entry fee at all. I made my first game before the App Store opened. I assumed Apple would be approving based on quality, so I polished and perfected it for months. That game will have its one year anniversary on the App Store this month, and it's still in its category's top 100 list. If everyone shoots for quality the first time, $100 for an app entry is incredibly tiny compared to the instant exposure it gets to millions of customers. There's going to be a breaking point soon, where new quality games, that don't come from established pro/indie devs, will be completely ignored, as they'll be drowned out by the junk.
I think even paying $10 will make the situation much better, but $25-$100 dependant on the speed is also a good solution. $10 for example update without placing it in the news list would be also a way to allow for cheaper updates, only if you want into the news lists then pay more.
Seems to be taking 13-14 days now for app approval having just gone through the pain barrier with Dweebs and Dweebs LITE (both took approx 13-14 days each)... used to be just 4 days and sometimes 24hrs in the early days. http://tinyurl.com/DweebsLITE
My game has been approved! Leaf Bound is now on the App Store! http://www.leafbound.com I submitted it on June 22nd and it is now live, July 5th.
Trak4 Lite approval Took 13 days. I can't imagine the people that had to wait 20+ days. If the review process just let you know how deep you were in the queue...... Trak4 Lite: http://tinyurl.com/qe94er www.trak4game.com
I can't imagine waiting this long to get an app into the app store, and I'm much happier that I work with Cydia and Icy. I can't imagine waiting three weeks for a free app to get put into the app store, let alone having to actually pay for it to be there. My two cents: Charging additional fees wouldn't be something Apple would like to do. A great discouragement to small-time devs, who might just stray into the 3rd-party realm and forget Apple all together. Then again, Apple has always hated the small-time dev, if the app store's current state is any indication...
