<story><title>We are leaving the Apple App Store and all its problems</title><url>https://exactscan.com/MAS/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dijit</author><text>Actually; now that I think about it, from a user perspective I also really dislike the App Store.&lt;p&gt;I used to _love_ it, I would check weekly for new things, maybe there was some new shiny (often beautiful) program to do something really well. The experience was on the &amp;#x27;better than passable&amp;#x27; side, nobodies favourite interface maybe, but certainly not terrible.&lt;p&gt;But I actually avoid the App Store these days, both on MacOS and my iPhone. I never really noticed but I just slowly stopped installing new applications from there (unless sent there by a company website in the case of iOS); this was around the time that Apple Music was being foisted down my throat. I&amp;#x27;m not sure if there&amp;#x27;s a correlation there.&lt;p&gt;I always suspected there were dark patterns at play in the App Store though. Although every program is reviewed, probably only 2% or less of them become popular, and if you are popular, boy, are you popular. the design paradigm is self-fulfilling. (&amp;quot;most popular&amp;quot;&amp;#x2F;&amp;quot;highest grossing&amp;quot;).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cytzol</author><text>&amp;gt; I also really dislike the App Store. [...] I used to _love_ it, I would check weekly for new things&lt;p&gt;I used to do this too, and like you, I&amp;#x27;ve now grown to really dislike it. My reason is different, though: the App Store app has _plummeted_ in quality. It&amp;#x27;s now so hard to use, I don&amp;#x27;t bother using it.&lt;p&gt;1. The UI is all over the place. Some UI controls cause pages to swipe up from the bottom. Some cause pages to swipe in from the right. Some cause modals. Whenever I click something, I have no idea what it&amp;#x27;s going to do. Here are some examples: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;grumpy.website&amp;#x2F;post&amp;#x2F;0RsaxCu3P&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;grumpy.website&amp;#x2F;post&amp;#x2F;0RsaxCu3P&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;2. It&amp;#x27;s full of bugs. I have witnessed the App Store lose track of whether an app is bought or not, downloaded or not, or installing or not. Another example: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;grumpy.website&amp;#x2F;post&amp;#x2F;0SU9WNFXB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;grumpy.website&amp;#x2F;post&amp;#x2F;0SU9WNFXB&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;3. It makes the rest of my system worse. Every week or so, I get a message like &amp;quot;Fantastical cannot be updated because it is open&amp;quot;. I didn&amp;#x27;t set it to update. I had no idea it was even updating. I just get an obnoxious dialog interrupting my work.&lt;p&gt;The App Store used to be like a shopping mall — I&amp;#x27;d browse the shelves, see what was new, and maybe buy a small app I liked the look of once in a while. But now it&amp;#x27;s become so hard to browse, I don&amp;#x27;t bother paying. Everyone loses out.</text></comment>
<story><title>We are leaving the Apple App Store and all its problems</title><url>https://exactscan.com/MAS/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dijit</author><text>Actually; now that I think about it, from a user perspective I also really dislike the App Store.&lt;p&gt;I used to _love_ it, I would check weekly for new things, maybe there was some new shiny (often beautiful) program to do something really well. The experience was on the &amp;#x27;better than passable&amp;#x27; side, nobodies favourite interface maybe, but certainly not terrible.&lt;p&gt;But I actually avoid the App Store these days, both on MacOS and my iPhone. I never really noticed but I just slowly stopped installing new applications from there (unless sent there by a company website in the case of iOS); this was around the time that Apple Music was being foisted down my throat. I&amp;#x27;m not sure if there&amp;#x27;s a correlation there.&lt;p&gt;I always suspected there were dark patterns at play in the App Store though. Although every program is reviewed, probably only 2% or less of them become popular, and if you are popular, boy, are you popular. the design paradigm is self-fulfilling. (&amp;quot;most popular&amp;quot;&amp;#x2F;&amp;quot;highest grossing&amp;quot;).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fiblye</author><text>I’ve only ever opened the App Store when there’s one particular tool I need to use. I’ve tried casually browsing maybe 3 times in 10 years (because it seems most people do this often) and it just seemed like endless fluff and garbage. I’ve never downloaded anything that I didn’t go in thinking “I need this.”</text></comment>