An App Store trend that needs to stop: Single-serving apps

Over the past few weeks I’ve noticed an annoying trend in Apple’s App Store: Developers attempting to milk their apps for revenue by releasing multiple variations of a single application.

Now, this wouldn’t be a big deal if these apps were substantially different, but they aren’t. For example, today we have Burger King Finder, Pizza Hut Finder, Taco Bell Finder, etc. Yes, they are all separate apps. Worse, each is $1.99, which is arguably a rip-off itself since the iPhone’s Google Maps app will do this for free.

Over the weekend I noted that several popular comic strips had gotten their own apps, but again, each was an individual app. If you wanted to buy all of them, it would cost you close to $100 — a ridiculous price for applications that may or may not even be legal (I received some emails saying that they weren’t due to copyright infringement). And that followed a rush of personalized calling apps with titles like “Call Joshua” and “Call Chris” — each priced $0.99.

On one hand it’s good that Apple isn’t inhibiting app development, but on the other, these types of apps — which really should be one app, but instead are made into dozens to make as much money as possible — are flooding the App Store with crap and likely making things confusing for customers.

Say what you want about the fart apps, at least individual developers aren’t releasing dozens of them to dupe costumers.