New Apps Lost In Apple App Avalanche

So many mobile applications are being developed—especially for Apple's iPhone—that deserving apps are languishing unnoticed in the App Store, according to app developers who gathered in Chicago Thursday.
"Discoverability is a big problem in the App Store," said Ashish Rangnekar of Benchprep, a Chicago startup whose app helps students study for admissions exams like the SAT and GRE.
"There are a million apps now. What is becoming a problem is not building the greatest app ever but making sure the customer finds the app you've built."
Rangnekar was one of about 25 mobile technology developers who gathered in a Chicago skyscraper at a meeting sponsored by eFactor, a social network for entrepreneurs. Because of the number of apps now available in the App Store, Rangnekar said, an app's name, icon, and screenshots may be more immediately important to sales than its content or performance.
My colleague Brian Caulfield reported earlier this month on Apple's announcement that it had sold 15 billion copies of the 425,000 apps developed for iPhone and iPad (and more recently for Macs):
Which is why the app store is packed with more software than you can possibly use — and it’s only going to get more packed in the years ahead. It’s Apple’s response to competitors who are flooding the marketplace with scores of variations on the touch-screen, media-friendly phone it first introduced four years ago.
Apple can’t fight them all with hardware, but it can do a little spamming of its own with software.
via With 15 Billion Apps Served, Apple Is Just Getting Started – Brian Caulfield – Shiny Objects – Forbes.
It's a lesson Apple learned from Microsoft, no doubt, in the 1990s, but Apple isn't responsible for developing every app in this avalanche, individual developers are, and the "spam" of apps, as Brian calls it, is becoming a headache for many of them.
Rangnekar advised app developers to "be smart about picking icons and names" and urged them to:
Focus on optimizing results when potential customers search the App Store, using search engine optimization techniques and careful messaging in the brief text allotted to each app
Within the app, develop features, hooks, and tools that create buzz in the media
Elsewhere, try to generate news, particularly from popular bloggers and industry newsletters on topics relevant to your app.
Benchprep tried many other common ways of popularizing its app, such as advertising on Google and cultivating user reviews, but found it's most important to get noticed in the App Store.
iPad Goads Apple Further Beyond Android in App Development, Developers Say
Most of the developers who gathered in Chicago Thursday offer cross-platform apps, but they agreed Apple has vastly increased its dominance of the mobile technology software market.
The iPhone is the most important device to app developers right now, said Carson Conant of Mediafly.
'I think the iPad was the killer," said Kilton Hopkins of the App House, which helps people develop ideas into Apps.
Others said the expect Android to catch up and that Apple and Android will dominate the mobile market for years to come.