iTunes App Store Comments: A broken system

Commenting on Commenters

One of the major complaints (especially from developers) of the iTunes App Store is the comment system. First, let's take a look at a couple of the gems I've run across. This one for Twitterrific:

Stupid.. ★

by medicated

So... Twitter is really stupid and an annoying waste of time. And somehow this app just makes it worse.

What an excellent addition to the list of already wonderful comments. It appears that this person hasn't even downloaded and used the app. Feeling so strongly that Twitter is "stupid" they had to write a negative review having never tried it. 

And now another for Exposure:

No Upload? ★★

by Terrible0ne

Is it that hard to make a free app that let's you upload geotagged pix to flickr and then view them on the map at flickr?

My sense is that Terrible0ne has little to no idea what it takes to concept, program, and polish an iPhone app. Now I could be wrong, he might be the genius developer behind some App Store standouts, but I highly doubt it. 

Differences Between Music and Application Comments

Music and movies never change. When someone comments on a Cold Play song it will forever apply. It's set. Applications are completely different. Updates fix bugs and add features. Comments don't reflect this. A commenter might complain about a bug that is present in 1.0, but fixed in 1.1. Unfortunately for the developer that comment is cemented in place for eternity. NetNewsWire represents an excellent example of this.

Nice idea, but ★★

by macguyincali

Those of us who are power users of NetNewsWire on the mac and have a lot of subscriptions, the iPhone application gets so bogged down downloading feeds that it is virtually unusable. I'm hoping they give us some more options for at least choosing a smaller subset of subscriptions or at least make it snappier with the larger set. I have yet to be able to successfully use it as it spends freezes up while waiting to download the hundreds of feeds I have.

This was a legitimate complaint about the 1.0 release of NNW. If you had hundreds of feeds it would take forever to load. Fortunately, Brent is an excellent Mac developer and listened to the complaints and (for the most part) resolved this issue in a later update. NNW now has the ability to remove feeds from showing up on your iPhone (Engadget and Gizmodo were immediately removed for me as they update way too frequently during the day). Unfortunately for Brent that comment is one of the "most helpful" and still shows up near the top of the comments (and more importantly, on the front page). 

Solutions?

One suggestion is that you shouldn't be allowed to comment on an application unless you have downloaded it. To me, this seems like a fantastic idea. It creates a barrier to entry just like the $99 fee to get your application on the iTunes Store. This barrier would help eliminate some of the crap. Obviously some of the crap will still come through (just look at the 50% of what's on the App Store), but imagine if that $99 fee wasn't there. It would be infinitely worse.

Could another possible solution be that you have different comments for each version of the application? The advantage would be that comments about a resolved issue would no longer be present. The disadvantage would be that an applications rating and list of comments would be reset each time. This might give developers incentive to release "updates" just to clear out any unwanted comments. 

Any other thoughts on how Apple can fix the comment system?

Who is Michael Cote and how does he know Apple sold 3 Million iPhones?

Something doesn't add up.

Fortune posted a story by Scott Moritz (who has helped spread rumors of iPhone numbers before) on Monday claiming Apple has already sold 3 Million iPhones. This number doesn't seem too far fetched. The iPhone 3G is available in many more countries than the original phone and is still sold out in many states here in the US. What is interesting is where this figure comes from:

One month after its debut, Apple's new iPhone has hit the 3 million sold mark, according to analyst Michael Cote of the Cote Collaborative.

Michael Cote, 'eh? Cote Collaborative? Fine. I haven't heard of every analyst out there, so that's no big deal. It goes on:

"They are seeing unprecedented demand," says Cote, adding that there appears to be no signs of a let up yet. Cote, a former T-Mobile executive, has been extremely accurate with wireless predictions in the past.

Okay, now you've caught my interest a bit. He has been extremely accurate with wireless predictions in the past? Searching Google for "Cote Collaborative" returns mostly results for the recent iPhone story as well as a link to cotecollaborative.com which is a page that is currently parked by GoDaddy. Interesting.

Searching Google for "Michael Cote" brings back 21,000 results, the top of which include: Michael Cote Music, Michael Cote from Grandbury, Texas, and Michael Cote of Redmonk. Towards the bottom of the first page of results we see results related to the Fortune story. Searching Google News doesn't turn up much besides the Fortune story either.

Searching for "Michael Cote T-Mobile" did turn up the following information:

Michael Cote is an Independent Telecommunications Consultant. He specializes in enterprise mobility, sales and distribution strategy, online strategy, smart phones, and customer care and billing. Mr. Cote has over 15 years of sales, marketing, and operational experience in the telecommunications industry.

Apparently he worked at T-Mobile as a VP of Business Sales and Operations from 2001-2005 and since then has been an Independent Consultant. So we know he was in fact employed with T-Mobile, but what about these other predictions that he has been so accurate with? I haven't found any evidence of those so far. He gave a presentation on Feb. 8, 2007 on "iPhone's Impact on All Things Wireless", but there is little information about the specifics in that presentation.

Results also turned up that a team lead by Mr. Cote while he was at T-Mobile was nominated for an American Business Award:

Michael Cote began his career at T-Mobile in 2001 as VP of Wireless Data Sales and Operations. Michael successfully built out Channel Management (focused on wireless data), Technical Sales and NSA (focused on enterprise business) and expanded his role to include General Business (focused on small to mid-sized business), when promoted to Vice President of Direct Sales in 2002.

Nice, but still no evidence of previous predictions or how he would have knowledge of Apple sales. I have also not found any evidence of Cote Collaborative other than the parked page. While I have just started my searching, this is somewhat interesting. Has anyone else been able to find anything significant that I'm missing? Let me know in the comments.

I don't doubt that he has knowledge of the wireless industry, but why would Scott Moritz use this guy's claim? It seems to have come from nowhere with no real evidence or explanation (other than it's popular). In fact, I think Apple has sold 4 Million iPhone 3G's! Someone contact me for a story. Something about this just seems strange, but what do I know?

Also interesting (although not solely related I'm sure) is that Apple stock is up more than $7 since the news broke that Apple had sold 3 Million phones.

Thoughts?

iTunes to iPhone Streaming Patent

[via AppleInsider]

A new version of Apple's iPhone Software could provide iPhone and iPod touch users with access to their home computer's entire iTunes media library while on the go without having to first download those media items through a traditional sync, a new company filing has revealed.

Apple has filed multiple patents for ideas that have never seen light outside of the Apple Skunkworks™. Will this be one of them?