That’s the App Store, not the Crap Store

Apple’s “App Store” for the iPhone and iPod touch  has spawned a new software development and delivery platform that has as much potential as any that’s come a long in years.  One thing I have noticed, however, is how many truly useless apps have popped up for sale on the App Store, most of them priced at 99¢… a tempting price even if you’re risking that your download will turn out to be total crap.

This has begun to create an unforseen problem: while the App store has now grown to include of 10,000 downloadable programs, the prevalence of this “crapware” has begun to squeeze out development of more complex and truly useful applications.  This week, Craig Hockenberry posted an open letter to Steve Jobs explaining this problem as it relates to his work as an iPhone developer at Iconfactory.  Edible Apple also posted some interesting charts and graphs relating to iPhone App sales.  Note the predominance of free and 99¢ apps, as well as that of Games…

It will be interesting to see if Apple does tweak the way programs are displayed and highlighted on the App store, and if this will aid in a sustained commitment from developers to create substantial, killer apps for the iPhone in the future.