Hope

Marco Arment:

A lot of things are wrong with my country, too. And my state. But it’s still the only place I want to be, and I’d rather fight to improve it than abandon it.

A great read on the state of the App Store from one of the top iPhone developers.

Instapaper Beta Testing Text Parser with Inline Images

Sounds like a nice new feature to one of my favorite apps.

The two App Stores

Great piece from Instapaper creator Marco Arment on the App Store and why Ramp Champ hasn’t been as successful as the Iconfactory & DS Media Labs had hoped.

App Store A:

Simple, shallow games and apps with mass-market appeal. These live and die by the App Store’s “Top” lists, so success is difficult to achieve and is short-lived at best, but with the largest potential payoff for the lucky few at the top.

App Store B:

Apps and games with more complexity and depth, narrower appeal, longer development cycles, and developer maintenance over the long term. These tend to get little attention from the “Top” lists, instead relying on the much-lower-volume App Store features (e.g. “Staff Picks”), blogs, reviews, and word of mouth.

First & 20 was built for those who shop at App Store B. Our vision was to help the dedicated developers that spend countless hours developing great apps get a little credit from their peers who use them. Could a couple lame apps appear on this site, on someone’s home screen? Of course, and a few have, but for the most part the apps featured here are the best-of-the-best.