[miffed]

Are sets of pictures of girls in bikinis ? Firstly , I don't really want pictures of naked women on my phone, and secondly , if I did I am pretty sure I'd manage to source the pics and put them on my phone without having to pay someone to write me an app to do it !

Just browsing through the appstore, and noted that these seem very prominent , and surely must add up to pretty significant number - and when you look at the staks of "hilarious" fart apps , and all the fortune telling crap and every other kind of wothless dross - you can't help but wonder what propotion of the 50,000 are actually anything like worthwhile ?

Don't get me wrong, there is some great stuff on the appstore , but the bulk of it appears to be dross IMO - and makes the whole 50,000 figure somewhat irrelavent , to me at least !

[Hands0n]

But doesn't Android's Market seem to be similar in many ways?

I think this is inevitable. Porn, even the soft variety, seems to be all pervasive. Interestingle it also worked out a lot of the wrinkles in eCommerce. Industry and the banks followed.

[gorilla]

I think I read somewhere that there was 480 separate fart apps, although that might have been a joke. The point is that as miffed states above, the app store is bloated with many duplicates and seemingly pointless apps.

What's worrying is that some serious apps are getting rejected either for competing with Apple or AT&T e.g. this one (http://www.tuaw.com/2009/07/28/is-atandt-behind-the-rejection-and-removal-of-google-voice-apps/).

What's the point in allowing open competition in fart apps, but when someone launches a "communications" app like google voice or a gmail app, they are rejected? If Apple are going to issue rejections based on strict guidelines, how about riding the app store of stupid and pointless apps, such as women in bikinis.

[Ben]

Apple needs to be rejecting the low quality apps that really serve no purpose. I'm having my own fight with them at the moment to list an app that's actually useful - their attitude towards what gets in and what doesn't will ultimately result in the demise of the App Store if they're not careful as other platforms surge onwards.

[@NickyColman]

I think its worrying that ive lost my excitement for the App Store. There was a time when you could open the app store and have no idea what would be there waiting for you.

Now it seems as if it is just rehashes of whats come before; fart apps, pictures of bikini-clad women, Twitter clients galore, 59p apps that are just pointless etc. I've also an extreme dislike for apps when the creators copy Apple or Twitter branding eg; "iFart" or "iTweetr" and so on.

Like Ben said, Apple need to "weed" the store and remove apps that already have identical functionality and little purpose or else its going to become an app grave yard.

[Ben]

One of the problems is that a lot of people are still rewriting and resubmitting apps for 3.0. This craziness should end soon.

It's going to take a while for really innovative 3.0 apps to arrive, but they will come with time.