Recently there’s been a fairly major revamp of the look of the App Store in iTunes. Notable changes include things like more emphasis on icons (larger) and screencaps (more shown at once), and app descriptions getting chopped off after just a couple lines (requiring a click on a link to expand out).
At first I was not too keen on the cutoff descriptions – but now I think it may be a good thing, sort of forcing developers to hone their ‘elevator pitch’ for their apps and get it across quickly. I definitely like that the links for the publisher’s web site and support have been moved up to near the top – these are important things to know when you spot a bug or similar.
One little not so great thing I’ve noticed is that details for in-app purchases are shown – which is a very good thing I think – but they are also chopped off, but without an ability to expand them to see them properly (bummer).
I’m curious what you all think about these changes. Love ‘em? Hate ‘em? Couldn’t care less? Let us know in the comments.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
It sicks because it does not resize to the window size that I am using and I need to scroll back and forth to see all elements of the window.
My mom always said "if you can't say anything nice…" so let's give this a try.
This is a great format for selling games, 99 cent no brainer downloads, and entertainment apps!
Wow. Is that because of the de-emphasis on the description area and the bigger icons etc.?
There are some things I like actually – I like having more reviews posted at once and I like that they've taken a step toward saying "Hey – this app has InApp purchasing and here are the purchase options" but it's a pretty terrible format in most other ways (besides the fact that I just don't find it attractive – neither her nor there)
So what is wrong? Well to start wtih, cheap, no-brainer purchases can be made with:
* A name
* One line of text
* Some big screenshots
When it comes to a more complex application, however, that just doesn't cut it. I'm not saying Apple shouldn't have done this – I just think it represents a continued lack of attention paid to the productivity application market. Apple is shaping their market (which is fine) and the shape doesn't include a lot of the really robust, strong applications that survive for years (and I'm not just talking about our stuff) and provide constant income for app stores and ongoing use for customers. And again – maybe they don't need to care – but it's too bad that they don't.
Yeah, I can feel the style over content vibe a little. It does feel a little clumsy as well – not fitting the in-app purchase details is awkward. I hope they are not going to ignore productivity apps though, or treat them like second-class citizens.
Throw in some shoddy testing (for instance, the More… button doesn't move when you resize so if you don't have your iTunes window open large enough, you can't even tell there IS a More… button!), and strange design choices (The icon gets top billing? I mean the icon has zero to do with the app once I've chosen to look at that app details – once I made the choice I want to know more than what I knew before – I already SAW the icon – make icons important in a search results list, sure, but on the app description page? What's the point?) and I really feel like they made strange choices on this one.
Oh, and I agree about the enormous icons. Very silly.
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