An Open iTunes App Store: What Would It Look like?

It's probably one of the most highly debated/argued issues out there today. Should Apple continue to keep their App Store closed down, or should they open it up and have developers just upload it right to the App Store? There have been many arguments on both sides as to what Apple should do, but honestly, I think we all know what they WILL do. They're probably going to keep it locked, and that will be the end of the story.

But have you ever imagined what would be the case if Apple let the gates loose and everyone was able to get an app approved to the App Store almost immediately? Here are a few of my predictions (good and bad) of what the iTunes Store would be like unleashed.

An overcrowded, Hard to Use App Store

Yeah. You may be thinking that if Apple opens the gate to the App Store, everyone will be happy downloading their own application and downloading all the other banned applications to their iPhone. But you also need to look at the fact that there are already over 185,000 applications in the App Store. There are probably 20,000 banned applications that have been rejected by Apple, and I'm sure there are many more that if Apple didn't have the policy they have now, would be on the iPhone. If this number goes all the way up to 500,000, or maybe even 1 MILLION, it will be very hard to look through Applications in the App Store. Yeah, we have a search feature, but what if you're just looking for some new games? There will be a ton of games to search for and quite frankly, it will just get too overcrowded.

1 Million + iPhone apps

Definitely a possibility. Think about it. If you have a locked iPhone App Store with 185,000+ apps, just imagine how many applications the App Store would have if Apple let any developer make their own application. At first thinking about this, I saw this as a good thing. But then I started thinking that it would eventually become a bad thing. The App Store would then start getting bloated with random apps that no one cares about(yes, more pointless than some of today's apps) and the App store would take forever to load on your iPhone. However, there will be some nifty applications that would come out of this lift. So it's petty hard to choose. More productivity, but more crap as well.

Categorized Apps Approved by Apple

This may be a bit confusing, but here is how it could work. If Apple opens the App Store, they should have a little "certified" green logo on the bottom of every application that has been approved in the App Store from the top 25 paid, free, etc. Then the ones that have not been certified by Apple have a little "uncertified" logo on the bottom. All certified applications would be apps that Apple has checked to see if they don't contain any malware or if they are a scam. Those not certified by Apple are giving the user a warning saying that this application may not be what you expect it to be, since we haven't checked it and not sure what it could contain. And lastly, have an explicit button in the app if it contains any explicit material, such as porn, bad words in text, violence, etc.

Filtering

This would be something that would be a huge improvement to the App Store. As the App Store continues to expand, it will get to a point where there will be so many sub categories of each category that Apple will probably add a filtering feature, where you can have a certain category or sub category not show up in the App Store. This definitely would fix the issue with the store being overcrowded.

Don't get me wrong. I would love to have an open App Store, but in order for that to happen Apple would have to reconstruct the App Store, because with the way it is now, it will get way too overcrowded. At first, if Apple did this, people would be very happy and thank them for finally not locking down their system. However, as the App Store grows exponentially and eventually the number of pointless, stupid, and useless apps beat out the productive, well-made, thought out apps, and the App Store gets overcrowded, people will start to complain again and ask Apple to remove some of the useless apps. As a matter of fact, we have that going on right now! People are complaining as we speak for Apple to remove some of the useless apps in the App Store.

You've seen my thoughts on how an open App Store would be like. Do you agree or do you think it will go someplace else? Keep in mind, this probably won't happen since Apple has kept an unpopular policy of keeping their operating systems as locked as possible.