A few things the Palm App Store could do better

This is just one of those feature request posts that I’m growing so fond of. By posting these ideas, one of a few things may happen. 1. Though unlikely, Palm will see this post and the agreeing comments and make some updates. 2. A developer will get a cool idea and build a new app that fulfills a need.

Since this is true for any feature request I write about, the more I write, the better. But now, to the point:

The Palm App Store needs a bit of help. On the whole it could be made more intuitive and enjoyable to use. Several features could be added or modified to make it a more useful tool for developers, and focus more on the communities built around apps.

1. Allow free and full versions of apps to be bundled together in one place. Adding a second link at the bottom of every app page would be much more effective than asking developers to create a second free version of their app on the server. By putting free and pro app downloads on one page, it encourages more developers to create a free version of their app, tells users that there is a pro version for buying later (when they are already using the free, or vice-versa), and reduces the clutter of having multiple apps that do the same thing. Rather, it is now one app that has multiple versions.

2. Allow for basic customizing of the interface. This would be small things like removing the price column on the left or adding a filter to ignore all apps within a certain category (like books or sports). Just a way for users to have a more fluid experience.

Being able to remove that column is important to me, while not to others. When I’m looking for an app, I don’t want to care immediately what the price is, I just want to find an app. I understand that developers don’t do this great work for free, so I want to support them (at the same time, combining free and paid versions of apps as described above would be perfect with this change). I would also like to ignore certain categories, since they bog down the app searching process. I don’t read the single books (I use Kobo), I don’t care about the sports, and I don’t play games. Let me take them out.

3. Besides reviews, there should be a second place for app discussions and feature requests. There are way too many people who write negative reviews about a product because it doesn’t have a feature that they desire, while what they really want to do is send that feature request to the developer. This gives them an easy way to discuss the app with other users (and developer) without spamming the reviews. It encourages community discussion and would be a great way for developers to get live feedback on their products.

It would be a simple feature, like the reviews currently is, but removing the rating widget and character limit. Let developers limit the ‘forum’ to all users, only paid users, or to turn it off completely and redirect to a separate support forum or contact form on their site. Not a difficult thing to do, and greatly improves the experience.

Those are just my ideas, though. Do you agree? Would you make any changes?