Apple needs to put more resources into their iPhone app program. We have all heard how slow it is to get apps approved or for simple updates to be pushed through. We experienced this first hand working on iHoops where some simple updates took close to two weeks to get approved.

Now some apps are being rejected due to third party content that the developer has no control of. Apple pulled these apps claiming it violates their policy of no adult or hate related content. It is impossible to police everything on the internet and the fact that some user could sabotage an app which costs thousands of dollars and weeks or months to develop seems unfair. As long as the app adheres to Apples policy I don’t think third party content brought into the app should be made to follow the same guidelines as long as their is proper warning that the content is being delivered from the internet not the app itself. What is the difference of launching Safari and going to an adult website on the phone. There is none.Yet Apple has allowed controversial apps to be approved in the past. I want to know who dropped the ball on the Baby Shaking app which Apple initially approved and then later removed.

Searching for apps also presents problems. Apple needs to incorporate some type of better search algorithm. It seems as if old school black hat seo tricks of the web work on the app store, such as keyword stuffing, and unrelated content about other apps. I recently searched for an art type of application and though the top results were related to my search after the first couple of apps they started to become totally unrelated. I clicked on the apps to see why and found out that in the description text listed hundreds of other popular apps at the bottom. To me this seems so out dated. If I am searching for “Graffiti” why would “Coed Spring Break” come up ahead of iGraffiti. Just because they have the name in their description? Come on, take a page from Google and learn how to filter results better and not let simple tricks such as unrelated keyword stuffing determine the results. If it takes so long to get apps approved why not take a few minutes and have the person approving the app actually read the description to make sure it is in line with what the app claims to do and not allow unrelated content.

I am one of the biggest Apple supporters out there and love pretty much anything they do. But I feel they need to invest more time and money into their app store to streamline the process, deal with third party content in a better way, and improve their own search capability. There are just too many inconsistencies with the app store and apps in general.