BetterAppStore Blog

New Features!

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:03:53 +0100

Today we add two core functionalities to our little iPhone application repository: Rating and commenting. You can vote on apps or leave comments. You need to be registered and logged in for posting comments, rating is available to everybody, account or no account.

Registering an account pretty much as easy as it gets: Go to the registration form, enter your desired username and a password, and you're set. No email address required, no pesky verification link via email, etc. Your account is ready to go instantly. In fact we log you right in.

If you decide to trust us with your email address, we will only ever use it to send you things you explicitly requested. Like a password reminder.

The ratings up till now were largely based on Apple's ranking of apps. We will still use this to influence the rating on our site, but the more important bit is you. Rate apps and let the world know why you gave this game only one star and that one free calculator app deserves all 5 stars.

We've tried to make it all as easy for you as possible. You can submit ratings by clicking on the rating stars at the top of an application view. Commenting is just as straightforward as you'd expect. Click the "comment" button below an app, enter your message (and maybe rate the app if you haven't done so yet) and submit. There's nothing more to it.

We've also cleaned up the site a little, added a little content, improved the encoding of app descriptions in foreign languages and a few minor bugs.

We're also working on a profile page which will display your ratings and comments. Of course that's not all, we've got a lot of ideas in our heads.

Let's Rock

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 02:23:12 +0100

In today's "Special Event" Steve Jobs presented the new iPod touch, iTunes 8, new iPod nanos and the iPhone 2.1 Software Update.

The listed changes include Genius playlist creation, shorter backup times, improved email reliability, performance improvements, improved stability, and other bug fixes. (Source)

Update: More info about the changes is available at Apple.

All systems functional

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:18:40 +0100

Hello and welcome to BetterAppStore.com! A place to discover and discuss new apps for your iPhone. Because Apple's App Store is just too annoying.

The now

Today we unveil our first step after less than two weeks of development. We're happy with it, but we're very far from done. You can browse through all the apps in our database sorted either by popularity or category, or you can use the full text search.

The future

As you can already see there is a login form up there and a way to register a username for yourself. In the very, very near future we will activate the rating and commenting functions so you can leave your personal mark on the site and let the world know what apps are important to you or which apps you think are especially useless.

We will also be fleshing out the search functions to allow you an even better insight into the store. We'll add applications from other sources than Apple's store. We will be featuring especially cool apps and let you know of new developments in the iPhone world. We'll let you add tags to apps because 19 categories aren't nearly enough to keep all these apps under control. And you'll be able to warn fellow users when apps turn out to be harmful to your iPhone or your balance.

You'll be able to create lists of apps you own and present your profile to the world. Or add a widget to your site that lists the newest or most popular apps on this site. We'll try to get non-American prices in here. The world is just that huge.

Of course all of this is useless without you. So feel free to stick around, kick the tires, check out a few apps. We won't bite.

The Idea

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:33:52 +0100

An unscientific poll among fellow iPhone users revealed a basic frustration with Apple's App Store. Hard to navigate, impossible to keep apart the legions of calculators and other popular (or simple to create) apps.

So how do we fix this? Roll our own! Our aim is to provide users (you, that is) with a place to navigate the multitude of awesome and not so helpful apps, rate and comment them, present your own collection of apps to others and generally make the iPhone a nicer, friendlier place.