Sunday, November 06, 2011

How to fix the AppStore and Android Market - part deux


This one is shorter! Thank my newly aligned chakras. This specifically deals more with malicious/fake apps and the fact the Play Store has no vetting process.

* Don't forget to star these ideas at the official Android site (top left, click the very hidden little star)
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=21582 <- This idea

Problems
  • Actual malicious apps which could steal your info, make expensive calls or are just simply fakes to grab some cash get released immediately on the marketplace. These seem to take a long time to be removed. Too much time in fact. I've seen fake famous games actually in the top lists for multiple days and fake programs with 50,000+ downloads.
  • Google don't want to/can't hand vet every app.

Solutions

Community vetting: Like a jury.
  • You should be able to set yourself as a vetter in your profile (ties into the beta tester idea below).
  • You get sent a few random new apps a day
    • They would show up in the same place as app update notifications and/or as a special column in the market app.
    • Regardless of what they cost, if you rate them or object to them you get to keep it as encouragement.
    • You don't get to choose which app to vet. To discourage only vetting cool looking apps to get them free. No new apps appear until you finish vetting the existing ones.
  • The number of vetters are automatically calculated based on a previous rating numbers/new app demands/number of registered vetters metric.
  • You can rate/object them BEFORE you install if it's obvious. If you rate low or object it's automatically removed/not installed.
  • If Google receive even a few 'this is harmful' or very low ratings from vetters it's taken down automatically for a Google employee to hand vet, regardless of the positive rating from vetters (to avoid gaming the system). Which would hopefully also quickly ban the entire developer and their other, probably crap apps.
  • The app would not go live on the market until a certain number of vetters vote.
    • This should happen almost immediately due to the massive number of Android nerds like us :) 
    • A cool down period of a day would allow the app to go live even if no-one vetted it.
  • New, unvetted apps that make it anywhere near the top lists should get priority and be sent to many vetters immediately.
  • If Google hand vet the app and it is deemed good, ANYONE who objected gets banned from ever being able to vet or beta test again.
    • All apps previously vetted get deleted.
    • Their account can be monitored for any more suspicious activity. Just rating an app low wouldn't do this (as it may not work).
    • A BIG warning comes up when a vetter sets a harsh objection. It should describe the type of things that objection is for. NOT that you just think the app is stupid. Some objections might be exempt, like 'crashes' and would not popup a warning.
  • Vetters tagging the app as broken could have their handset stored in a database so the developer could fix the issue. New users could be warned until the app stops breaking on their particular handset (see 'beta tester' idea below to avoid this)
  • New vetters are warned apps may be malicious! So Google doesn't get in trouble :) Still, this is better than the general public getting it.
  • New objection catagories! I presume 'spam, malware, virus' aren't categories so it doesn't scare 'normal' people. Ok, only show these if you are a vetter.
    • New catagories could be 'pirated app, fake, spam, crashes, forces user to skip 15 minute refund period, unreasonable permissions (BIG WARNING HERE, as most people don't understand why apps need certain permissions (like AdMob stuff).
  • Should updates need to be vetted? It would be reasonably easy to submit a non-spam app, get it approved and update it with crap. Even without vetting updates it'd still be vastly better than now since to pass the app would actually have to do something useful and would stop all the fakes which is most of the problem.
  • Popup warning for normal users on install
    • The marketplace should automatically warn the user on purchase/install when the app has a high number of low scores (NOT the average), plus multiple objections logged, plus that it hasn't been vetted by anyone yet.
And finally..
  • Allow the general public to set 'only show vetted apps' in their market app. This is especially good for anyone giving a phone to their kids/mum (a filter for apps with a high 1 star ratio would be nice for the same reasons). If anything I think the default should be to only show vetted apps.

Haha, it was still super long, tricked you, loser.
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)