More App Store BS

Look's like Apple has made the situation worse - removing the 'all apps' listings. So none of the lists are unfiltered (except for top apps?). This means you have to waste more time searching for apps and there is no way to get unbiased, listings unaffected by promotions.

I sent this feedback to Apple and hope that others will similarly do so:

I'm offended that Apple does not represent apps in the app store appropriately, and has removed the best option for finding an unfiltered listing of recent apps. I could care less about the iTunes store recommendations for apps. Don't need it, won't look at them. 

Every category (except top paid/free apps) is filtered through some kind of promoted or featured system which doesn't reflect what is actually available. Even the "New" listing does not reflect all the new apps - just what the iTunes store recommends. Worse, the best option for finding unfiltered content (all apps for iPhone or iPod Touch) has been REMOVED. What's up with that? 

This is totally bogus and offensive to consumers. Let us make the judgement of what we want, not your advertisers or app developers or staff. And I'd have to say it's a non-Apple way of doing things - or at least was. 

Fix this, like yesterday or expect more pissed off customers.

MacPak a Waste of Time

Around July 3rd, I purchased a $5 MacPak 5 bundle, as I thought there might be some interesting apps. I received the requisite messages stating that my payment was received (and made by PayPal). And I even received a message stating that the serial numbers were forthcoming.

Unfortunately, when the serial number email was delivered - the message wasn't displayed in Eudora. Apparently, the material was flagged by Eudora's spam scanner. And I couldn't figure out how to display the message. [I don't usually use Eudora these days, but the email my PayPal account uses is archived there.] I redirected the message to other accounts (that I access with Entourage or Gmail) - but no dice. One license (Photostickies) was sent to me separately by the software vendor (DevonTech).

I sent a message to the MacPak CEO (Mark Howson: mark@namenetwork.info ) and after a couple of days he told me he would send a new message with serials in a couple of days. This message never came, but I did get a huge load of spam mail from MacPack including a survey. None of my subsequent messages were answered and no serial numbers were sent. 

Today I decided to view the message without encoding, and after wading through shitloads of html I found a license for CastCount and a link for a direct download to a game (Chaos Machine) embedded in the message. Unfortunately, the CastCount license doesn't work with any permutation of my name (including MacPak registered name). Hopefully, the CastCount people will come through with one soon.

I can't understand why Howson would tell me he would personally send the serials in a couple days, then do nothing (three weeks past). I also can't understand why MacPak would send emails that can't be opened.

I was considering a complaint to PayPal, and sending similar comments to the vendors of software sold by MacPak. However, for $5, this is a waste of my time perhaps. So instead, I'll bitch here and hope the message gets out.

DON'T BUY ANYTHING FROM MACPAK, BECAUSE THE OWNER (MARK HOWSON) CANNOT LIVE UP TO HIS COMMITMENTS WITH CUSTOMERS.