It Was Broke, and They Made It Worse

So the iPad comes out and Apple takes a stab at revising the App Store. Good, you think... the App Store has never had great tools for finding games, developers game the hell out of the comment system, and now that there are more than 50,000 games finding anything not on the top 100 lists is purely by luck (or knowing the name from somewhere else). Ah, and the iPad arrives, and games are the single largest category for iPad-specific software. Excellent, Apple is right on top of things, they're going to revise the App Store before the situation gets out of hand...

And then you see what they've done. No more sub-categories, just some filters showcasing What's New and What's Hot. Excuse me? Did all of the creativity and thought go into the hardware, and then when it came to the App Store you just decided to be stupid? We need more ways to find games, not fewer. We need the commenting system improved. We need to be able to find an RPG without having a category stuffed full of pseudo-RPGs that are come-ons for social network games.

Look, Apple, I know you feel that it's up to the developer to sell their app, and you're just a store. But come on! Throw us a frickin' bone here. Even stores offer tools and programs for companies trying to sell things in their stores... shelf talkers, end caps, co-op ads in fliers, coupons... I sure hope iAd is a lot more thoughtful than what you've done with the App Store. Because it's broken, and you're making it worse, and as more apps pour into it, it's gonna get worser. (Somewhere, an English teacher just had a coronary.)