Criticizing App Store interface and inconsistent approval processes is already getting to the point where even enthusiastic readers start to get bored by reading about it. It's also kind of embarassing for the developers, because Apple is our sales agent, our business partner who even made this business possible and all we have to say is "Apple, that really sucks!" repeatedly. We are pretty happy with our sales, our first application has been picked into Staff Favorites worldwide, we've been topping the Productivity chart for some time and aiming to top it again. There are many ways to successfully market the application. But the latest interface changes in iTunes 9 feels like Apple didn't get it right at all, even if Phil Schiller sounded like they are going to, at last.
Since iTunes 9 came out on 9th September (until 09/13), we are seeing a 20% - 30% hourly sales drop ands it's becoming slightly worse as more users are upgrading to the new version. More developers are reporting similiar, see here or here.
Here's why we think it happens.
New navigation and categories
From the accessibility point of view, the new navigation bar now allows users to jump from anywhere to anywhere within second. But what about those tiny little arrows on the right of each button? Arrows designed this particular way are very non-standard for web design and navigation. These arrows are actually independant buttons themselves while looking like a part of the whole button. Standard behavior in this case (when an arrow appears on mouse-over) is to show a contextual menu when user clicks anywhere on the area of the button. In iTunes 9, arrows are different buttons and they have their own hover state. You have to click that exact 15x15 px arrow area. If you look at all other buttons on the App Store with such arrows, they're clearly split away as a different button for safety and for users to easily understand.
Why is the new navigation bar an issue?
There is no other way to access App Store categories than by clicking the arrow. With 100 million credit card accounts on iTunes and 50 million iPhone+iPod touch users in total, there's a high probability that even our grandparents use iTunes. The "average Joe" may not be aware that the 15 px arrow opens a separate menu for categorized applications which may interest him.
Even bigger issue in other 54 countries?
In 23 countries where iTunes Music Store is available, there are eight main sections in the top navigation bar. We can presume that even our Joe finally figures it out at some point sooner or later, mainly thanks to hover effects when moving the cursor around. But in the other 54 countries where only App Store and iTunes U are available, the navigation bar is significantly cheaper. There's much less probability that users from these markets navigate around using this bar (and notice the arrow), since only App Store is used basically all of the time. For example, on Brazil store, the "home" is actually the App Store homepage and the "App Store" button is the same. The arrow appears on mouse-over, but users don't have many reasons to discover this navigation bar immediately.
In the old interface, there was a sidebar with categories grabbing visitors' attention. More pageviews in separate categories force developers to compete against each other. Topping the particular category makes the application more visible not for regular visitors only, but mainly for the media. Recent improved keyword searching is certainly not a compensation for this situation, since it's very likely that users don't even know what they want until they see it. That's what Apple has been doing with their products since Steve Jobs had a personal computer idea -- introducing products which people never thought about before. Hiding the categories into a 15 px contextual arrow may cause that small interesting applications get lost even more than before, because they're less visible and individual categories are getting less pageviews.
No more sub-categories for games
Interested in shooting action games or puzzle games only? There's no way to filter these games now -- there's only a single "Games" category. A lot of good games may get lost even more now. Again, people don't know what they would like to play until they see it by browsing around.
Tight grid design
If you've been clicking around already, you've also noticed that all "TOP" grids are now based on big icons with less text in a tight grid. There's less space for text or descriptions and text is trimmed to about 20 characters. Wouldn't it be better to create a more spacier grid with a short description for each application, each application under the next one? It's a known fact that people buy products by packaging design when looking at the store shelf -- people don't read descriptions that much. Is Apple's approach the same in the long term? Is a grocery shop experience better than Amazon-type experience?
Mouse-over to compare.
Force for change
It seems that Apple is using interface design as a force for developers to create beatiful packagings (icons) which are recognizable and stand out. Apple forces the developers to cut the long names with descriptions and use keywords instead. Apple also forces developers to not undervalue the store with $0,99 approach, but rather think of a "sweet-spot" price point to get quality apps into "TOP 200 Grossing" list. Sounds very clever at this point. Genius is also a great idea -- let's pretend that Genius will indeed become much better after some time.
But why hide the categories, completely disable sub-categories and somehow make the developers focus only on getting into that TOP 200 grossing? That's not what the developers have been suggesting for the last year with gross charts. Why there are no TOP grossing inside categories as well? Users may get used to the new navigation bar and categories overtime, just as they pass the treshold of the learning curve. But why the aggresive tradeoff? How did sub-categories break the force approach, especially?
iTunes 9 App Store interface with inconsistent design across pages feels more like a "public beta" in which Apple didn't have enough time to finish it because of September Music Event deadline. The interface is raising questions and it will most probably drop the sales for many applications. Patches and improvements like Genius, TOP Grossing, new index page with better Staff/Noteworthy sections may indeed help, but considering the mentioned glitches and tradeoffs, there still seems to be a long way ahead. We're not sure if iTunes 9 shortened it.
UPDATE: After three weeks of iTunes 9 availability, I can happily report that sales are getting to their original levels. As we've predicted, it seems that users eventually got used to the new interface and new navigation bar.