[Macworld]

Post your comments for Apple warns developers against gaming App Store rankings here

[CharlesHaggas]

I think its one thing to say "hey you shouldn't use nefarious practices like bot farms to generate fake downloads for your app".

But to say you shouldn't hire a marketing company that guarantees there results even if it comes from strategies that are completely 100% common marketing practices I think is a bit hazardous to its developers.

Look app developers if a marketing company is so confident in its strategies that it guarantees downloads and thus rankings you should hire them. That's called effective Marketing/Advertising. As a community we should champion experts in there field whether its app development or app promotion.

I've seen too many times an app developer get woo'ed by some expensive PR agency that has no idea how to generate users for an app and charge $100,000 for a PR campaign that generates a measly 20,000 downloads from a Mashable article. I hope Apple would see this is not fair as well.

I would like Apple to perhaps take a more open approach and engage in the conversation as to how you can generate downloads for your app and what vendors are good and what vendors are bad.

This would be much more effective then putting out statements that strike fear into the market every couple months.

[lynnfredricks]

Every system can be gamed, and Apple has created a system with the Mac App Store that promotes specific types of gaming by developers. Check my link below for details.

http://www.lynnfredr...-mac-app-store/

[VadimChernega]

Apple's statement is clearly a start of a new era - a regulated AppStore Marketplace. For Marketing Agencies like Comboapp it's a great opportunity to showcase our methods and demonstrate creativity and real results. Apps of our clients have been and will stand out from the crowd.

[ArtieD]

It's absolutely no brainer that it was the right step for Apple to take to stop the madness with people using bots to cheat ranking on the App Store. Period.

But as they say - there is a smoke, there is a fire. It's been argued by many tech. bloggers and iOS developers that evidently it's time for Apple to work on new ways for new born apps to be noticed. It wouldn't make sense for people to try to cheat App Store with bots unless they desperately seek for their app's visibility.

My point is that while you're righteously stop unethical practice it would make perfectly sense to offer better ways for app developers to get an exposure for their apps.

If you read the thread on TouchArcade forum, the one that was mentioned in the article about Temple Jump affair, you will notice the core motive - budget, how much money a certain indie developer can spend on its app marketing as appose to a company like Electronic Arts or Zynga. Perhaps it's a bit crazy idea but how about introducing a new category on the App Store - Indie Dev Top Paid / Free? :-)

Well jokes aside - it would great if Apple could come up with a better way of allowing small indie developer to compete with big companies.

[GaryWalmsley]

On a somewhat related topic, in iTunes, if I choose to view "Music Apps",on my iPad or iPhone, I can view the category by "Name", Best Sellers" , or "Release Date" —HOWEVER—I used to also be able to view the category by "Customer Ratings", which I found MUCH more useful as a criteria to judge apps by than the other three insofar as it gives real world, 'experiential' evaluations, while "Best Sellers" are often skewed by being popular because certain apps are free versus good or truly better.

Does anyone know why "Customer Ratings" was done away as a category view option by Apple? I really do miss "the wisdom of the crowd" as a guide. Thanks.