iOS 6 brought with it not only more than 200 new ‘cool’ features but according to Chris Newman, head of mobile development at Lightwood Games, it also brought with it a lot of fustrations for small developers.
According to Newman, Apple’s decision to remove the Sort By Release Date option has a negative impact on app discovery. On his blog he writes “For a small developer, this is terrible news,” He then adds “Although it’s only for a short period, the ‘new release’ exposure is extremely valuable. It’s our opportunity to grab people’s attention, build the initial user base and gauge the public’s reaction without needing to spend a fortune on marketing.”
Another major fault in the new Operating Software is that in iOS 5 and those before it, searchers could see five results in the search rankings and get to 25 with the flick of one finger. However the new iOS 6 only presents the user with one app per search page. The problem with this being that in the past users were more likely to flick through the first 100 results, where now most prorbably won’t make it past 25.
What do you think is the new App Store a hindrance to developers or do you prefer the new layout?
