Last year, we ripped Google for ripping off the design of Apple’s App Store for their Chrome Web Store. This actually might be worse. It looks almost as if Microsoft is ripping off Google ripping off Apple. Again, allegedly — the shots aren’t confirmed.
I guess the question really is how else do you display thousands of apps with top rated / purchased and a featured section? In that regard, Apple ripped off Bodega’s Mac OS App and they copied Amazon which may have copied others like Buy.com or online marketplaces that came before. Here are products, here’s a rating system and a charts system with reviews and an area where we can put staff picks and feature a few from our big players. I’m not sure how design nerds can really do much different in this regard. The Apple App Store is really the same design as we’ve had since 2003 from the iTMS which, at the time, just sold music. Who did Apple copy when that was released?
I honestly don’t believe the online store front can be optimized any more or designed any differently without doing a disservice to those that use it. Heck, many would agree that Apple’s design (along with everyone else’s) fails when the app selection grows beyond 1,000 available apps. How do you find one out of 5,000 calculators when you search the app store for “calculator”. It’s impossible to find one unless you know it by name. Most of the time, timing and popularity / advertising outside of the store bring one app to page one and that’s the one that gets the most sales.
Design can help this problem but that’s not really a problem that Google and Microsoft have right now and I’m saddened that Apple hasn’t really fixed this yet. Their Genius feature is a band-aid that only leads to more sales (ie more revenue for Apple).