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Apple rectifies App Store sorting

by Mat Lu Jul 17th 2008 at 4:00PM

A while back we noted that there some shady practices going on at the App Store. Basically certain developers were putting spaces or other characters in the front of their application names so that they would come up on the first page in the alphabetical sort at the iTunes App Store. According to Infinite Loop Apple has quietly rectified the problem.

It now seems that if you go to the App Store the default listing is by release date. However, if you change it to Name you'll find that the first page basically has what it's supposed to have. Right now displaying all iPhone apps (iTunes link) starts with the ebook 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea with Abacus second. It's nice to see that Apple has been proactive in taking care of this.

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A while back we noted that there some shady practices going on at the App Store. Basically certain developers were putting spaces or other...
 

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umijin

Did they really fix it? What pi$$e$ me off is the 'new' app listing doesn't actually have the NEWEST apps, just ones that Apple thinks you should look at.

The only way to see new apps is to select all iphone/ipod touch apps and sort by date. But then again, maybe this isn't all of them.

July 18 2008 at 10:56 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kit Cowan

Makes me think that developers will just start thinking a little more before naming their programs. Kinda reminds me of the Yellow Pages. ABC Auto Repair, 123 Computing, etc. If the rule is alphabetical, then look out of a bunch of "A" named apps.


July 17 2008 at 11:37 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
alex cutter

Someone doesn't know the meaning of "proactive".

July 17 2008 at 9:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Seth Amott

I had a feeling Apple would take care of this pretty quickly.

July 17 2008 at 7:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
tim

Am I the only one shocked that they didn't strip white space from the beginning and the end of strings in the first place? I mean, I have no idea how the uploading of apps went on the user end, but whenever I develop anything it is common practice to strip out the unnecessary empty spaces.

July 17 2008 at 5:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to tim's comment
fishbert

I wish they had... a few apps in my sync list still have an ugly extra space between the app name and the check box.
(yeah, I'm anal like that sometimes)

July 17 2008 at 7:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
R. Cabell

I'm glad they fixed that. Now, how about bringing back Download Counts?

July 17 2008 at 5:05 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
craig

That's great, NOW WHERE'S TAPULOUS' FRIEND BOOK? I WANT I WANT! I NEED I NEED!

July 17 2008 at 4:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Macroy

Isn't this more reactive than proactive?

July 17 2008 at 4:28 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Macroy's comment
Chris

They can't get how to get the phones on the shelf figured out...I doubt that the idea of developers dishonestly naming their names of apps in the store ever crossed their minds.

July 17 2008 at 4:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Big John

...and all that rage a few days ago in the blogosphere for nothing.

July 17 2008 at 4:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Big John's comment
OmniGeno

All that rage? Well, it was interesting to talk about anyway. Plus, they did do something about it after all, right?

July 17 2008 at 4:26 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Big John

The amount of anger over the issue seemed to me like it was much ado about nothing.

July 17 2008 at 4:55 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Joshua Ochs

Hopefully what they're doing is manually verifying the application names before approving them, and fixing blatantly misleading ones. Given that they only have a few hundred apps right now, I'm not surprised (but still quite pleased) that they managed to fix it quickly.

Had they waited until it was the equivalent of MacUpdate or VersionTracker...

July 17 2008 at 4:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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