Way too many of the "comments" are inane. If someone has a legit opinion that's one thing, but arbitrary statements don't belong there. Things "this is stupid" is all a matter of personal preference. And some of the "complaints" make it sound like the app costs a fortune when we're talking 99 cents! There are certain things that are easier with an interface designed for mobile, and it might be WORTH 99 cents to someone to have a native app with an interface designed for mobile use, even if the same 'functionality' is available on the web...

In fact, I'm working on an app that combines four different types of functionality into one mobile-designed app with "memory" features (so you don't have to keep re-entering the same values). These four different "features" can be found on free web sites, but you have to jump around to four different sites, and they're cumbersome to do on an iphone, not to mention typing full URLs into the tiny keyboard over and over again (and in my case, these features are often used when you're in a hurry...) I plan to offer it for a nominal 99 cents to cover development & maintenance costs. I can already HEAR the stupid comments from users and I cringe in anticipation... "You can get this free on the web!" Yeah, no kidding - but that's not the point.

I've seen apps that SAY this is a lite version and then there's an enhanced version available and the users post reviews complaining because it doesn't have that certain feature... or people posting "complaining" about something that's very clearly stated right in the information overview for the app!

I definitely think Apple should filter out the stupid stuff... There may be no such thing as a stupid question, but there's DEFINITELY such a thing as a stupid comment! :-)

I couldn't agree more - I'm not a developer but I can personally feel the pain of some of the developers who spend time on an app, submit it to the Appstore, and then proceed to get panned by immature people, many who clearly never bought the application to begin with.

As a pilot I was interested to see one of the first aviation related applications hit the Appstore, only to see one of the first reviews end up with one star and an inane "review" that clearly demonstrated that the person had never bought the application to begin with, but also had zero understanding or comprehension of what the application was all about.

Why should an application that already has a rather limited audience (hence a small number of legitimate reviews) suffer under the heavy-weighting of a one-star review because of twits like this?

I always thought that the iPhone (and hence, Appstore) was limited to a fairly mature audience and as such I expected to see more professionalism in the reviews, but based upon my observations either the average age of Appstore reviewers is 14, or there's a staggering number of very immature adults out there.

I really do wonder what the average age of the commenters in the App Store. Saying stuff like "5.99 is WAY overpriced. I can't afford to pay that amount." What's the price of a carton of cigarettes, nowadays, or a gallon of gasoline. I know they must not be going to bars or even baseball games.

Commenting is done on the basis of a personal opinion. Either you like it or you don't. Games difficulty can be all over the place. I've played games at first I thought were impossible to beat, yet a month later after playing them for hours a day I'd found they were too easy. Everyone's skills are different.

I think many people are coming down to hard on Apple considering the App Store is relatively young. Maybe it's just taking time for Apple to formulate some rules. It may not go on like this forever.

I'm not a developer, but I am a user and an investor, so I'll go along with what Apple is doing as far as weeding is concerned. I honestly don't mind Apple doing the policing. If I lose out on an app or two, it won't kill me. As far as I'm concerned, they're doing a fine a job as can be expected so soon and since it's their store, they can approve or disapprove of apps whatever way they feel is necessary. They should be able to determine as well as anyone whether they'll lose money or developers or not.

To me, Apple is just like officers policing the highways. There are some set rules, but you can get pulled over and ticketed for weaving in and out of lanes or driving too slow based on a particular officer's judgement. It's not all just in black and white, there are grey areas in everything.

What some of you are asking is like telling an automobile company how they should design their cars or what engines to use and such. It's the manufacturer that decides what goes and what doesn't is not up the buyer, except for the fact whether he wants to buy that manufacturer's car or not.

If you all think there's going to be a mass defection of developers from the App Store, I really, really think your wrong.

Android isn't available yet, and if you think it's going to be a perfect platform or light years better than what Apple can offer you, I'm willing to bet your wrong.

yeah comments sucks on the app store but dontya think apple has better thing to do but bothering it's core customers about the quality of what they say? as long as they buy and, well,... SEEMS LIKE THEY DO! :p

You guys suck. Stop crying, grow up, and use the internet like the rest of us idiots.

It was very tempting to put a very stupid inane comment here, simply because I have nothing at stake. If I had purchased this article, or had to give my real name or even thought the impact of my comment would make a difference, it would have been different.

I encourage Apple to re-design the comments on applications and come up with at least these three improvements:
1. Only allow comments from users who have 'purchased' the application
2. Allow copy and paste from within the comments. For some reason, within iTunes when viewing the comments, I cannot highlight text.
3. Provide search ability within the comments.

Or better yet, instigate a forum approach to the application reviews.

It is just the way it is. My app is on the AppStore, I get a mix of useless comments and some very valuable ones. That part is fine with me. But I had to let go of the notion of the rating. Because you have some users who give you 1-star because they couldn't get the app to work even though it is completely user error! They don't contact support for help. They just slam your rating. As a result, you get an average rating of 3 or 3.5 when you might otherwise have a 4.5. That's a bummer. But so be it.

There is the "did you find this helpful" feedback on comments part. But, to my knowledge, there is no logic that says if x out of y users mark a comment as "not useful" then the rating is factored out of the average rating. Maybe there should be something like that.

able to buy it in the Apple Store without a contract? I don't mean unlocked, just without a contract. It is for a Christmas present for a person with an older IPhone with a contract with ATT already.

The Apple Store is a chain of retail stores owned and operated by Apple Inc., dealing in computers and consumer electronics. As of June 2009, Apple has opened 257 stores; 210 in 41 US states, 20 in the United Kingdom, 9 in Canada, 7 in Japan, 5 in Australia, 3 in Switzerland and 1 each in Italy, Germany and China.

The App Store is a service for the iPhone and iPod Touch created by Apple Inc. which allows users to browse and download applications from the iTunes Store that were developed with the iPhone SDK and published through Apple.