∞ Is Apple bringing Genius for apps to the iPhone?

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Apple has given us some very useful technologies over the years, but one really stands out in my mind–Genius. This is a technology I think Apple will bring to the iPhone to help us with app purchases.

iPhone appsIntroduced as part of iTunes to allow users to create custom playlists based on the type of music they are currently listening to, Genius has become a way for users to find music they have completely forgotten about in their libraries. But what if Apple could expand Genius and make it even more useful.

Currently Genius gathers information about your current music selection and then puts together a playlist based on that song. The technology also has a small section on the side that recommends music from the iTunes Store that you may not have.

That works well for music because most people have thousands of songs in iTunes, many that have been forgotten for years. But the technology would need to change a little if it were to be adapted to work with applications.

First, Genius for apps would need to make recommendations for other apps currently in the App Store, instead of focusing on what’s on your iPhone. Let’s face it, that’s where we need the help–actually finding decent apps to download.

With 50,000 apps currently available, it’s become nearly impossible to find an app using the current iTunes setup. It is going to take a technology like Genius for users to continue buying and downloading useful apps.

It’s also going to need to be part of the iPhone, iPod touch and iTunes. I want to be able to find apps when I’m out and about, not just when I have my computer with me.

The App Store is certainly successful, there is no doubt about that, but the continued success of this model relies heavily on people being able to find what they are looking for. To a large extent, that’s difficult to do these days.

I’ve pretty much stopped trying many new apps simply because it’s too difficult to sort through everything. However, if Apple had a technology to do that for me, I’d probably try some new apps again.

More importantly, if Apple were to implement Genius for apps, I’d probably trust the apps I was downloading to be decent and what I was looking for in the first place.

I have a difficult time trusting the reviews and ratings on the App Store. Maybe I’m just cynical, but sometimes I think the best way to look at the ratings and reviews is to flip everything–make the good reviews bad, and the bad reviews good. That will most likely give you a better view of how the app actually rates.

Genius could easily do away with that frustration. With its secret algorithm, Genius could actually recommend apps that we want to buy, based on an incredible amount of criteria all weighed and calculated by Apple.

Personally, I find Genius for music incredible. It matches songs that I’ve completely forgotten about and it always works. That’s what I want for apps.

If Apple wants to continue selling apps like it has over the past year, it is going to have to give users a better way to sift through the mountains of available applications. If the past year is any indication, the amount of apps is going to continue to grow by huge amounts.

Genius will help developers because users will be able to find their apps; it will help Apple show the choices available and be able to sell apps; and it will allow us, the consumer, to trust our purchases again.


  • http://www.reyespoint.com Jeffery Battersby

    Great idea here!

    The only disappointment I’ve had with Genius, and this is very mild disappointment, because I LOVE genius, is this: I listen to music that spans a broad spectrum of genres, from Opera, Hip-hop, and classic Johnny Cash-style country to Latino, Folk, and Alternative. (sorry, no modern country garbage, I mean “music.”) I always hoped that Genius, being genius, would find others with similar tastes and mix it up a little more. So that when I select a tune by Tom Waits, Genius would find a way to slip in something from La Boheme, Miles Davis, and SSPU.

    But as you’ve stated, Genius is otherwise pretty genius, and I’d love to see something similar to Genius for the App Store.

  • scott

    I love the idea and you’re absolutely right that some sort of recommendation engine is needed. There’s a slight problem in using Genius as is, but it’s easy to remedy.

    The Genius in iTunes finds similar songs to a selected track. It does this through (what I can imagine) to be many different metrics such as genre, artist, album, etc and probably many more things we’ve never thought of. We know that Genius phones home to Apple (cue the stupid freetards yelling “no! apple is evil! my listening habits are my data!”) and uses that data to build a broad relational database that is then used to recommend similar songs.

    However, once you’ve found a certain app in the App Store that suits your fancy (a twitter client for example), this “find objects similar to this” algorithm wouldn’t be useful. I don’t need suggestions for 20 other twitter apps after finding a good one.

    Genius for the App Store would do the same thing along the lines of that in iTunes and collect the names of all downloaded Apps, usage statistics, etc (the list goes on). However, instead of finding similar apps, they’d need to find similar “groups” of apps. For example, among a sub-population of users, they regularly use NetNewsWire, Tweetie, and FlightControl. So when a user who currently uses NetNewsWire and Tweetie (in other words, they fit that sub-population) asks for Genius recommendation on NetNewsWire, they are presented with FlightControl. Completely different applications, but the user will appreciate the recommendation of FlightControl a lot more than that of another RSS feed reader.

    It subtly morphs into a recommendation engine along the lines of “other users like you also like “. That, I think, would be the best way to leverage data from a crowd to help the individual.

    Of course, we could then begin to think about how apps cluster together, how the clusters intersect, what that says about users, and what it says about the group of users as a whole. A total mind f**k (the good kind) for engineers, scientists, and mathematicians that think about that sort of thing.

  • http://www.basilweb.net Walt

    This sounds like it could be a good idea if implemented correctly. Any way might be better than the current search.

    I’ve been looking for an app that can take a timed picture using the iPhone’s camera. Lots of people take self images using their phones. The problem on the iPhone with that is there is no physical button to keep your finger on while getting yourself in front of the camera. There should be “an app for that,” no? Take a picture in 10 seconds. If not, someone should make one.

    I searched using the word “camera.” Plenty of image editing apps were suggested, and many other apps that had nothing to do with “camera,” but nothing that I could see that did what I was wanting to do.

    Maybe this idea would help narrow the search.

  • chad

    @walt:
    night camera does that, among other things

  • http://counternotions.com Kontra

    I explored the ramification of massive quantities of metadata Apple will be poised to collect through app vending and Push Notifications for deep analytics in:

    Apple The Storekeeper
    http://counternotions.com/2009/05/19/storekeeper/

  • marv08

    While I appreciate any improvements to the App Store, I am not quite sure Genius is the answer… It makes sense to recommend people buying a thriller other thrillers, or people buying alternate rock other bands in this genre. Now, if I buy one travel expense application, I certainly do not want to have other ones recommended, because using more than one is not really making a point. Using the “others also bought” approach is equally wacky… if a lot of buyers of a navigation app also bought the same slasher game, it does not mean a lot (except that I may not want to drive where they drive). I really see no way to make that work well.

    IMHO, Apple should work on the basics first. Most needed would be a “synopsis” entry for every app, that should contain one sentence maximum and describe what the app actually does. This sentence should show up in all search results and overview screens, on the iPhone/Touch as well as in iTunes. The biggest problem with the App Store I see at this point, is that it takes hours to go into each and every detail screen to even find out what an application is supposed to do. Also, there should be a real bookmark/wish-list feature. Once you find something, but do not want to buy right away; finding something again, if all you can remember is e.g. that it started with “i”, is a royal PITA. These two changes would make the store a lot more usable.