I was playing around with writing an app for the new Apple TV, and it was fun enough that I ended up putting a bit of polish on it and releasing it to the app store. It's a free game called Slingshot Superhero.
It wasn't until the app got approved that I started to realize just how terrible app discovery is on the platform. There's no "new apps" list at all. There are no Top 100 lists in the individual categories. I can't even link you guys to the app. The only way anybody can find my app is if I personally tell them to go to the app store, find the search feature, and use the hilariously bad text input feature to search for "Slingshot Superhero".
I probably won't be making any more Apple TV apps.
That really sucks. Still, discovery has been crap on iTunes for.... how long? I've always relied on sites like TouchArcade and their ilk when trying to find iOS games.
I really wish Apple would do something like Google Play does, where I can go onto the store in my browser and buy an app right there to be sent to my AppleTV.
Also, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make voice recognition universal to all text input fields. Why isn't this the case already?
I am really liking my AppleTV and hoping that Apple puts the effort in to make it fantastic.
Bought ours on Saturday, and excitedly asked Siri to play some David Bowie when I got it home and set up... It just displayed a list of films that he'd acted in!
It wasn't until the app got approved that I started to realize just how terrible app discovery is on the platform. There's no "new apps" list at all. There are no Top 100 lists in the individual categories. I can't even link you guys to the app. The only way anybody can find my app is if I personally tell them to go to the app store, find the search feature, and use the hilariously bad text input feature to search for "Slingshot Superhero".
I probably won't be making any more Apple TV apps.