Well the good news is that CityStream went live in the AppStore today and people are trying it out. It took just over two weeks for the approval process.

The bad news is that several key files are missing from the version on the AppStore. I’m not sure what happened, but there’s an important Browse button missing on the first tab (it should be above the Play button). Also missing are a “Add Picture” button, a Settings icon and the default settings (like name, etc.).

Bummer. I just uploaded a new version, but it’ll likely be another two weeks.

I finally submitted CityStream to the App Store last Friday. We’ll see how long it takes to get approved. I’ve been hearing stories of approval times between a week and a month these days. Although 148apps suggests much shorter approval times.(maybe that includes app updates in addition to new apps?)

The App Store metrics over at 148apps are amazing though. So there are 64,000 apps, but only 15,500 active publishers. 15.5k seems surprisingly low considering how much attention the App Store receives.

Two very interesting articles on the App Store last week:

The Dirty Little Secret of Apple’s App Store
gigaom.com

These are typically local search or travel apps written by a single publisher. Molinker is one such example. It pulls content from Wikipedia and Flickr for a country or travel destination and renders it for viewing offline. Molinker offers more than 800 of such applications, at 99 cents a pop. Another bulk apps provider is GP Apps; it has 380-plus apps, each of which essentially takes a search word and marries it to Google Maps.

Skyhook July Report Reveals Bulk Apps Responsible for Q2 App Store Growth
skyhookwireless.com

…the release of mass produced “Bulk Apps” in the Apple App Store. Bulk Apps are template-based apps sold at the same price, all having the same look and feel but with swapped out content. These Bulk Apps caused significant growth in the total number of LBS apps in Q2 of this year. One developer sold over 850 travel apps based around the same template, but with different content based on specific cities.

About 1/3 of Apple LBS apps are these mass-produced local search or travel suite apps. There are over 65,000 apps in the Apple App store, but it is important to understand that bulk apps play a big role in this volume.

I’ve been reading about some iPhone app makers that are unhappy about this, accusing some publishers of putting iPhone App Spam in the App Store. Complaints ranged from having the App Store flooded with cookie-cutter apps to increasing the delay in the approval process. (Being an App Store reviewer must be a pretty thankless job based on a few of the apps I’ve seen. Plus they’re an easy target to complain about, it seems.)

I actually wouldn’t mind if they put a cap on the number of apps you could submit with your $99/year fee.(10?, 20? then you have to pay an additional $99) Maybe it would lead to more quality apps and less noise.

Unfortunately, I don’t see this happening anytime soon. Maybe after the App Store hits the 100,000 app milestone. Actually, even though I come across as another whiny App Store developer, I totally understand Apple’s reasoning and would probably do the same (for the near future).