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Developers furious over App Store “Line Cutting”

macenstein.com — There ’s a bit of bad blood brewing between developers of iPhone Apps these days. It seems several different companies have renamed their iPhone games to begin with either a space, a quotation mark, or some other symbol so that they appear first in the list of 197 games on the iPhone portal to the App Store.

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  • stard00, on 07/13/2008, -28/+2I gues everybody cares little about other's work
  • joeycerone, on 07/13/2008, -39/+6The developers are just mad because they got outsmarted.
  • fraul, on 07/13/2008, -4/+82That's being an a hole with capital A.
    • haikuFU, on 07/14/2008, -6/+27You mean " A"
    • ozziegt, on 07/14/2008, -0/+4Yeah, but it should be easy for the app store to fix.

      Honestly though, doing an alphabetical listing isn't fair in the first place. Someone who writes asteroids shouldn't have an advantage over someone who writes tetris. They need to come up with a better way to list the titles that is fair for everyone.
      • thelizardreborn, on 07/14/2008, -1/+3If someone does a " Tetris" though, and a customer comes in specifically looking for Tetris, they may jump straight to the T section, completely skipping the line-cutters.
      • andrewcod, on 07/14/2008, -0/+1If someone comes in looking specifically for a tetris game, they're more likely to just type "tetris" into the search box than first go to the general app store, then drill down into just the t's, and then manually look there for a tetris game.
  • CreativeGuy, on 07/13/2008, -22/+1This story is already old news.
  • auricomnet, on 07/14/2008, -4/+7freaking bs
  • RBrenner14, on 07/14/2008, -50/+112App store?? More like CRAP store! Am I right, or what?
    • Epistaxis, on 07/14/2008, -9/+12I see what you did there.
    • blackjack75, on 07/14/2008, -3/+13To be fair many developers didn't stand a chance to publish their apps (I got my key yesterday, having asked months ago). I bet in a few months the selection will be more worthwhile.
    • danj321, on 07/14/2008, -1/+9At least you didn't go. "Apple Store? More like CRAPPLE store!" Thank you for not subjecting me to that.
    • adambadam, on 07/14/2008, -4/+3I think if you want to make the pun its more like crAPP store.
    • zman14321, on 07/14/2008, -1/+16There once was a time where comments similar to this would be buried.
    • ahmedb07, on 07/14/2008, -1/+12u sound like a bad comedian fishing for laughs...'cmon, am i right?!'
      • sexybobo, on 07/14/2008, -0/+1your mom sound like a bad comedian fishing for laughs
    • JamesMatt, on 07/14/2008, -1/+2what?
    • roadtripguy, on 07/14/2008, -0/+3HAR HAR I'm Steve Jobs and open platforms don't make me richer! (even though they are far superior to closed, buggy, no-outside-input proprietary platforms) Crap is right.
    • darrin60, on 07/14/2008, -0/+0Am I the only one getting the Billy Madison reference here?
  • joshefosho, on 07/14/2008, -24/+8Their just mad because they didn't think of it.
    • thelizardreborn, on 07/14/2008, -0/+1Even if your comment was worthwhile, it's already been said in the second comment on the whole page. Buried for redundancy.
  • deadbaby, on 07/14/2008, -22/+3Clever but I really doubt people are buying things based on their alphabetical order. If so then I dunno... if your consumers are that stupid maybe you should find another business to work in.
    • Me1000, on 07/14/2008, -0/+2That is how advertising works, you get your stuff in front of as many eyes as possible. The more people that see it, the more people that will try it.
  • CatsAreGods, on 07/14/2008, -16/+86Did these guys ever look at a Yellow Pages? People thought of this stuff 100 years ago.
    • tedrock, on 07/14/2008, -3/+26Clearly you didn't read the article considering that point was mentioned in it.
    • Elranzer, on 07/14/2008, -0/+2How long until some iPhone app company names itself Aardvark?
      • MalDON, on 07/14/2008, -0/+3Just imagine the game! "Aardvark Racing!"
    • TheShad0w, on 07/14/2008, -0/+3My question is why doesn't Apple sanitize the title data? Its not hard to strip out whitespace characters before and after the string... Talk about novice mistake.


      Rules of Data
      1. Never trust the user input
      2. Never trust the company feed
      3. Never delete w/out logging.
  • dvsbastard, on 07/14/2008, -3/+123" AAA I don't think this works for Digg comments...
  • RogerRabbit, on 07/14/2008, -9/+7I didnt know they cared so much. Seems theyd be content ripping off loads of people with $10 (and up) games for iphones and ipods.
  • sirgolf82, on 07/14/2008, -12/+7ZZZZ Worst.
  • w3weasel, on 07/14/2008, -26/+3Waaaaah! Someone is better at marketing than me! NOT FAIR!
    • thelizardreborn, on 07/14/2008, -0/+3It's this kind of "marketing strategy" that makes those of us who didn't major in business lose all respect for the marketing folks.
  • bobbyi, on 07/14/2008, -15/+8The obvious solution is for apple to give all the apps random alphanumeric names.
  • iatebabies, on 07/14/2008, -16/+5jirbo has about 100,000 bots pointed at them right now, i'm hacking that *****.
  • thesbian12, on 07/14/2008, -14/+5woah, what a major glitch. Apple really messed that one up. woah. I bet it'll take months for a fix. Probably a total recode.
  • mr5150, on 07/14/2008, -10/+1No different than advertising in the classified section of the newspaper. look under mechanic and you will always find an A1 Mechanic listed first....surprise surprise! doesn't make his business any better than any other just smarter at advertising themselves.
  • stefpet, on 07/14/2008, -2/+105trim() -> problem solved
    • maexus, on 07/14/2008, -1/+6That and ignore ignore special characters when doing alphanumeric sort though I agree it's not the best solution.
    • TrevorPace, on 07/14/2008, -8/+2trim() is not a programming function.

      But they easily could write one.
      • mossblaser, on 07/14/2008, -0/+10possibly not in "visual basic"...
      • abandonedhero, on 07/14/2008, -0/+5You've obviously never used Java. Overgeneralized statements like you just made just make you look stupid.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_(programming)
      • TrevorPace, on 07/14/2008, -0/+2Well I was wrong it appears.

        I guess I was thinking about C++ too much.
      • MalDON, on 07/14/2008, -0/+1Actually visual basic does have Trim()
      • TheShad0w, on 07/14/2008, -0/+1trim(), strip(), replace(), strreplace(), s/^s+//g & s/s+$//g the list goes on and on.. chose a language and I can find a solution.

        Don't make assumptions.
  • Lunarbunny, on 07/14/2008, -2/+36Reminds me of arranging game server lists by alphabetical order. "Sure, let's try ' !!!!!!AWESOME SERVER!!!!!!'" That was another thing I noticed CoD4 got right - server lists sorted by alphabetical order started from the first alphanumeric character in the name, ignoring spaces and symbols.
    • xero9, on 07/14/2008, -0/+23Then you end up with:
      AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWESOME SERVER!!!!!
      AAAAAAAAAAAAAAWESOME SERVER!!!!!
      AAAAAAAAAAAAAWESOME SERVER!!!!!
      AAAAAAAAAAAAWESOME SERVER!!!!!
      AAAAAAAAAAAWESOME SERVER!!!!!
      • CSharpSauce, on 07/14/2008, -1/+3AAAAAAAAAWESOME SERVER!!!!!
        AAAAAAAWESOME SERVER!!!!!
        AAAAAWESOME SERVER!!!!!
        AAAWESOME SERVER!!!!!
    • PhoenixAvatar2, on 07/14/2008, -0/+4Don't know why you don't just sort by lowest ping...
      • Lunarbunny, on 07/14/2008, -0/+3I do, I just was citing an example.
  • robbob, on 07/14/2008, -4/+3Sort by oldest post date and use search.
  • beerbarron, on 07/14/2008, -1/+4Well now that the issue has been brought up, apple will pug it I am sure...how long it will take is anyones guess, I think personally apple released to much to soon. They should of rolled out mobile me about a month ago, then rolled out the app store 3 days before the 2.0 release, giving developers time to see how the app store would handle..
    • jmbrysk, on 07/14/2008, -0/+1App store was rolled out privately in late june. Look at the release dates for some of the apps. Very few of them were actually released on the 11th.
  • airmann90, on 07/14/2008, -1/+39Lol, I thought this would be about steve wozniak cutting line for his new iphone...
    • uways, on 07/14/2008, -0/+2me too! i should learn to read
    • billbugger, on 07/14/2008, -0/+2lol, or Gates. He has nothing better to do now :-p
  • taizoshiozaki, on 07/14/2008, -2/+5Apple will probably be forced to apply download stats for sorting sooner or later. Alphanumerics is nonsense in non-latin countries anyways.
  • mistermaster, on 07/14/2008, -0/+26After Apple fixes this, expect a sudden surge of aardvark-related products
  • stephend, on 07/14/2008, -8/+3I don't blame the App writers at all. This is Apple's fault for having such a crappy system. Why should the makers of Xylophone Mobile (or whatever) be shoved out of sight by a mere alphabetical happen stance.

    All's fair in love and business....
    • Galaxylander, on 07/14/2008, -1/+4They aren't? Who browses apps by the list of every app? You browse by category, and you don't have to browse them by alphabetical order. Also- how else were they supposed to organize them? Popular apps end up on the front page and everything, and if a person knows what they're doing they can advertise their product online and get the word out. Good apps will make it whether they start with a Z or not- ZEN Pinball is on the front page and one of the most downloaded games.
  • fugazied, on 07/14/2008, -4/+5Fixed in 5, 4, 3, 2.....
  • spleeyah, on 07/14/2008, -2/+1plug*
  • BossKey, on 07/14/2008, -2/+2Nothing new. Rock bands have done this for decades to get primo space in the record rack.
    Not to mention "AAA Roofing" in the phone book...
    • lintmonkey, on 07/14/2008, -0/+1...because when I use the phone book, I always start at page 1.
    • oneoverzero, on 07/14/2008, -0/+3There's a company owned by a parent of a friend of mine and it's called AAAA1 storage.

      The man who owns that is actually (though not because of the name, but because his company was found to be dumping asbestos into a reservoir, or something like that) one of the few people I'd consider evil.
  • mpeters13, on 07/14/2008, -2/+2Eh I wouldn't worry. If the applications suck, there will still be 50 reviews telling people not to waste their time downloading it.
    • Radan, on 07/14/2008, -0/+1Sadly, that is not the case in many of the stores in smaller countries. In the Swedish App Store, there are currently maybe twenty reviews total in the whole store.
  • zoomzoom83, on 07/14/2008, -1/+7The ideal solution would be to sort non-alphanumeric characters to the *end* of the list. That way any such cheaters suddenly get thrown to the end of the list.
    • BurgerPunch, on 07/14/2008, -0/+0Jirbo would just change their name to Aaaaaairbo

      The solution is ditching the alpha sort
  • Sabin, on 07/14/2008, -1/+2Wow, never thought that I would see that outside of a torrent site or usenet
  • pezholio, on 07/14/2008, -2/+16So tacky and unprofessional. Personally I'd give any apps that employed this tactic a wide berth. If their coding's anything like their business practices their apps are bound to suck...
  • Stegg, on 07/14/2008, -0/+2I don't think that this is going to get people to buy your app if it isn't any good. It's not like I'm going to just settle for a ***** app cuz it's closer to the top.
  • bradleyland, on 07/14/2008, -1/+8Easy fix. ***** with the listing by arbitrarily changing the name of your app? Suspend them from the store for the three months. If they do it again, six months. Then a year, and finally permanently.

    Also, I just deleted the one Jirbo app I had on my phone. It sucked balls anyway.
  • bingostud722, on 07/14/2008, -0/+1They allowed that to happen, they should just be mad at themselves. It happens all the time with other mediums so that they can get listed first. free advertising basically.
  • KenSPT, on 07/14/2008, -1/+13Who cares?
  • ThankTheCheese, on 07/14/2008, -0/+18trim($name);
  • Sairynn, on 07/14/2008, -0/+9"It seems several different companies have renamed their iPhone games..." Several? Every app in the screenshot was made by Jirbo, Inc.
  • bylarke, on 07/14/2008, -1/+2I guess it just goes to show that the mac developers are tools. How could you not see this coming. Its been going on for years mostly in the phone book. I bet that the name of the deveopers game probably starts with an A an he is just pissed because he wasn't smart enough to put a space.
    • waluigi14, on 07/14/2008, -0/+2Why are you insulting ALL Mac developers? There is only one here (Jirbo inc).
  • Shivetya, on 07/14/2008, -1/+2I think its funny that of all the examples they listed, especially Jirbo, that those were also almost always free or cheaper than other items on the list.

    If anything FREE items should always be listed first.
    • sjmulder, on 07/14/2008, -1/+1I tried some and there is a reason they are cheap.
  • buddadude, on 07/14/2008, -3/+2This so-called 'furious' developers are probably just jealous because they didn't thought about it first. If they really have a good product then it will speak for itself. This is business people, not a line to the DMV, kill or be killed.
  • dtfinch, on 07/14/2008, -0/+1*updates PAD files to add a space before each name*
  • orthodoxDrew, on 07/14/2008, -1/+1this isn't a free-for-all like irc, apple will have this fixed 5 minutes ago
  • billbugger, on 07/14/2008, -0/+2Use google. That was the whole point behind their engine that the rest were failing at.
    This alphanum sorting issue was solved ~10 years ago.
  • Skarz3d, on 07/14/2008, -0/+7Let what seems like one of the worst offenders know how you feel:

    http://jirbo.com/contact.php
    • Ksg89, on 07/14/2008, -0/+1I think i'm going to puke, just look at that website! My dog could do better
      • zomglolcats, on 07/14/2008, -0/+1Looks like my geocities website from 1997.
    • sagat, on 07/14/2008, -3/+1Dear Jirbo, well done, with a simple space you have proven yourselves to be smarter than the jealous little bitches complaining about how you got one up on them by thinking of it first. Enjoy your profits.
  • o5rob5o, on 07/14/2008, -0/+1Hmmm and add this to the already blatantly fake reviews, look at some apps reviews, im sure someone has already mentioned this but, 5 out of 5 stars on 13 of 14 reviews, not to mention the review is wrote like it belongs on the package of a product with perfect grammar and what not, and all the reviews have similar grammar and only 1 history of reviews, with date joined close to the release of the app.
    • jmbrysk, on 07/14/2008, -0/+2If you see that kind of *****, report it. Honestly, who is going to govern user driven reviews? The users themselves, of course!
  • CluckerMcDuck, on 07/14/2008, -1/+0why do you think they have companies like triple a aaa gets u pretty high up in the phone book its an old trick theyre just trying to forward their product
  • sickb13, on 07/14/2008, -5/+1Mac Developers would cry about this on digg. why don't you go get an iTissue and write an emo song about it.
  • DD00, on 07/14/2008, -0/+6Apple fixed this by the way. If you go check Jirbo isn't at the top of any lists anymore.
  • PokerGigolo, on 07/14/2008, -1/+2Every company, if they have any intelligence on their staff, will do whatever they can to maximize their exposure within the rules of the space they operate in. Apple chose a sorting algorythm that represents the least amount of effort on their part, thereby defining the rules, and these software vendors are simply taking advantage of those rules. You would do the same thing, unless you're stupid.

    All of you diggers, and the software developers, who are seemingly so angry at the other companies for doing this really should redirect your anger where it belongs: Apple. By being lazy, Apple allowed this to happen. I realize most of you think Apple can do no wrong, but if you look at the rollout of this generation of iPhones, it's been a complete ***** from day one. This is just another example of how Apple blew it. Nothing unusual, really. Apple has blown it repeatedly throughout their history, and they'll blow it again.
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