Why the Apple App Store Doesn’t Work2

by Dan Tabor

In some ways the Apple app store is one of the greatest retail platforms ever invented; it gave the ability for anyone to make an application for their iOS platform and sell it to the public. But in some ways it’s also one of the worst. Don’t get me wrong, I am not one of those guys hoping to get some hits by throwing some wood on the ol’ I hate Apple bonfire, and I am not talking about bars or death grips either. I have a legitimate beef, and trust me, I love my iPad.

Have you ever purchased an app and had it simply not work like you expected, or just had it crash over and over again? Have you ever downloaded two apps with the exact same functionality, only because the first one didn’t perform exactly as it was listed in the store?  What do you do? I know if I buy a blender at Target and it only works some of the time, I would simply take it back to Target and get a refund. That’s what you do with defective goods, but not with the app store.

The return process on apps is not the easiest or most intuitive, and good luck trying to contact some of these deadbeat developers to get your $2.99 back. Making an app is a lot like having a baby, sure anyone can do it, but you don’t have to support it afterward. The app store, while being the ultimate in convenience, has no safeguard for the consumers who spend up to $200 million a month on applications. They make it painfully easy to spend money, but not so to get it back.

But what Apple is doing by keeping the prices of apps low is most people wouldn’t want to be bothered with trying to get a refund. They will just simply spend another $2-$5 and buy another app which hopefully will fit their needs, and be done with it. Trust me, I have five RSS reader apps for my iPad and I am still looking for a good one.

So, where’s the guarantee that you’re going to get what you want when you hit that “buy now” button?  You can’t try before you buy on most apps, and the reviews are about as trustworthy and reliable as what you would read on a truck stop bathroom wall. Also, with so many apps now for the two platforms, quality control has started to slip to the point where a 15-year-old got a tethering app through the “very stringent” Apple app store Q&A.

I guess as long as Apple is too busy approving sub-par apps, which we continue to buy, this will keep happening. If there is no real penalty (i.e., easy refunds for consumers or support) for delivering a product that “kind of works,” developers will continue to do so, at least until Apple has another class action lawsuit on their hands when someone actually figures out they spent over $100 on apps just to find $10 worth of good ones.