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Apple's Incentives

Posted by Matt Birchler
— 1 min read

Michael Rockwell on App Store editorials:

It would be nice if these Apple published editorials weren’t tucked away inside of the App Store. They should have a proper home on Apple’s website and an RSS feed available so enthusiasts can follow along without having to launch the App Store everyday.

I completely understand where Michael is coming from, but I don't see this happening anytime soon. The reason: Apple's incentives.

The whole reason these editorials exist is to have you open up the App Store and see what is cool in there that day. As a fellow enthusiast, I sympathisze with the desire to see these articles drop into Inoreader every morning, but unless Apple sees that as a way to get you to download and buy more apps, I don't see it happening.

Now personally, I occasionally check out the editorials in the App Store, but I miss far more of them than I actually check out; largely because I don't think of the App Store as a place to read about apps. If I could subscribe to a feed and read it in Inoreader, it might actually make me more likely to tap the Buy Now button to go the App Store, simply because I'd see more of these articles. If we accept that this would get people like me to check out these apps more often, then maybe it makes sense, but I suspect us RSS users are so small a market that even if we did use this, we're not valuable enough to warrant the time and effort it would take to build and maintain this functionality.