Complete
8 days ago

The Store is being decimated by a handful of developers spamming low-effort apps

IoFace, Islandic, SunEast, Echelon, Wonderful, Saraswatches, Warm, FaceTime, Estefania83, tatu_vic

They just blatantly SPAM the heck out of the store.

This issue is now a weekly subject on /r/Garmin with hundreds of upvotes and people fuming and complaining.

This has gotta stop.

eau_de_vie
  • 8 days ago in reply to Brandon.ConnectIQ

    The Garmin Connect IQ store is not the same as YouTube. 

    The Garmin Connect IQ store provides apps for Garmin's own flagship wearables. Newer Garmin devices flaunt "supports Garmin Connect IQ apps" as a feature.

    Therefore, the purpose of the Garmin Connect IQ store is to enhance the experience of Garmin device owners.

    Meanwhile, Garmin devices are marketed (and priced) as "premium" wearables (compared to competitors like Amazfit, Suunto, Coros, Samsung, even Apple). 

    Now think carefully about what experience the current "dumpster" "anything goes" Connect IQ store gives to new Garmin users. Consider that people are paying USD$1000-$1200 for a Fenix 8 (before taxes).

    You can do better, Garmin.

  • 8 days ago

    This particular bit from Usul...

    "App Stores have turned out to be critical to make products great, and directly impact the customer experience with the products we love."

    The store is going the way of AliExpress, where it's tons of the same stuff, over and over. Finding that gem in the dump truck of rocks is getting to be the norm.

    Filter from search results > add developer name > happy.

  • 8 days ago in reply to Brandon.ConnectIQ

    Respectfully, the current solution is failing to meet customer expectations. It is a very poor experience. My big issues with the current store:

    • Payments for apps & faces. Why can't there be one central way to pay? E-mailing a developer to activate a watch face is super clunky.
    • Making it clear what data the developer is getting. What am I sharing with a third-party?
    • Giving customers an idea of impact to battery life when using certain apps or watch faces.
    • Discoverability & search. Some watch faces have multiple versions, but are all treated as individual apps in the UI/UX. It seems like it should be possible to group them together and create less "noise" in the browsing and search outputs. Rather than "clean 1," "clean 2," "clean 3," "clean 10000" why not just "Clean by IoFace" and then see all their versions of "Clean" under it?
    • Categorization of watch faces would assist in searching and browsing. For example, if I want to see "easy to read," "data focused," "sports and activities," "creative expressions." I don't know how to actually find watch faces that meet those expectations. I just get all of it in one big spaghetti bowl of a mess unless the store has come up with some kind of curation on the home page. Ranking by category would also really help.
    • Ability to filter based on compatibility. I just want to see the watch faces that are known to work with a specific watch. I can't figure out how to do that.
    • "Report a problem" needs to be dramatically improved. If a watch face is broken, or doesn't look right on a specific watch, how can I flag that? Can other customers see if several customers have reported a recent issue? Why do I have to copy a URL to report an issue? It is kinda terrible.
    • Confusing name. Connect, Connect IQ, Garmin Connect... ? Why not Garmin App Store or something that clearly says what it is?
    • Consistent marketing. It would be great if the ToS specifically described how to display the first "marketing" image to ensure a consistent browsing experience. For example: No photoshopping or modifying the screen shot, no distracting backgrounds, etc.

    There are many other ideas. This honestly feels like a big opportunity for Garmin to get right. App Stores have turned out to be critical to make products great, and directly impact the customer experience with the products we love. I hope Garmin will consider putting some real strategic investment into improving this experience for customers.

  • 8 days ago

    Surely you could think outside the box a bit and find some solutions. Like others suggested:
    - blacklist/blocklist of developers - this one seems really perfect, it's elegant, easy to implement, gives power to the users and doesn't change your philosophy, also gives you additional data (who users commonly block) to feed your recommendation engine with

    - charging small flat yearly fee for each entry - developers would have to manage their submissions and delete useless ones

    - limit amount of apps dev can submit

    - implement ability to filter out search results with keywords, like in google search, "-TimeFace -SunVenus" etc.

  • 8 days ago in reply to eau_de_vie

    There are many solutions to this problem, but Garmin prefers no solution that costs no money.

    It's understandable, they are addicted to mediocrity.

    But hey, they can't even afford to add simple filtering by rating, that's strange.

    Other problems: why is there no cap on the number of apps released by a single developer? What are these idiotic rules?

    I think it's logical that a start-up publisher should have a limit, say 5 apps in the first 3 months.

    Later, the limit can be raised on request depending on the trust score, which is modified by, for example, reports and app ratings.

    Corporate publishers of well-known brands have other limits, of course, but it is already known that they are not spammers.

    This is feasible, but apparently garmin is too weak for this.