What I Don’t Like About the Pre App Catalog
The Palm Pre has become a mainstay in my work day and it’s working out pretty well. One thing I find myself doing every day is checking the App Catalog regularly, probably given the lack of a lot of apps so far. I like the way the App Catalog works on the Pre but one thing is really bugging me and I hope Palm addresses it.
There is currently no way to tell if a given app costs anything. All of the apps listed in the catalog, no matter how the list is sorted, just show “Try Me” and that’s it. You have to select an app and drill down to the business side of things. This is annoying because there are a lot of free apps in there but you can’t tell with just a quick look.
I don’t think the app store supports paid apps yet, so everything shows up as “Try Me”. Once they roll out a payment system, I’d expect the price to show up where the “Try Me” icon is now.
Many of them are trials though and it should indicate that.
I’m suspecting that might be “as designed” – to get people to actually click through rather than using price to be the main filter – thus increasing potential sales. If that is the case, I’d say I agree with you and it is a bad user design. I prefer that price or some sort of “$ or Free” be displayed on the main screen.
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll forward it to the team…
Rob,
Either I’m missing out on something or they are missing the most important part of selling the apps. If I don’t have a Pre yet and I’d like to check out what is available, as far as I know there’s no where to do it. You can go up to the Palm Website and all you seed is old apps (not bad, but doesn’t get my blood up if I’m looking for reasons to pitch my wife on letting me get a Pre ). And to be honest, I don’t want to browse on a phone when I want to look at all the app-candy. Once I see what I’m looking for I don’t mind downloading it or buying on the Pre. Also, it doesn’t advertise the folks designing Pre Apps…if they were on a Website, it might help other developers to get the Pre-fever.