Why we made AppApp.io

“Dad…DAD…can I play on the iPad? Pleeease dad.”

Kids love iPads. My kids really love our iPad. I am not sure why. Maybe it is the sense of control it gives them; it’s the only electronic device they intuitively know how to operate, with touches, swipes and gestures, that they don’t need to be taught.

Because of this, the iPad should have huge potential to be an educational device.

Struck by this thought, I wanted to find a maths game for my five year old daughter, hoping to harness her love of the iPad to trick her into learning something as well.

I wanted to find a quality piece of software, so I was prepared to pay for it. But I didn’t want an app with in-app purchases (IAPs). I wanted my daughter to play and learn, not to be upsold to.

Finding an app that fulfilled these criteria was far from straightforward. If you search the app store for “maths game” today (I just did) it’s not until result number 14 that you find an app that fits this criteria.

The vast majority include in-app purchases. In educational apps for kids. The thought of software designed to upsell to children does and should leave a bad taste in the mouth. Of course you can disable in-app purchases on the device, so you don’t have to worry about your children accidentally making purchases, but the problem is deeper than that.

With the traditional software business model, the main concern of the software developer is to make the best software they can. There is a correlation between the quality of the software, and how many copies they sell. In the case of an educational app, the developer will try to make the best educational tool they can, putting the needs of the user first, so that it is well reviewed, it receives good word-of-mouth, and users want to purchase it.

With the in-app purchase business model this is fundamentally changed. Almost every step of the way in the creation of the software there’s a tension between making the best software for the user, and trying to sell to them to increase overall revenue. Almost by definition this will lead to a degraded experience, as the user is no longer singularly put first. Are we trying to educate, or sell more IAPs?

So back to finding my daughter a maths game. On the iPad the App Store search does provide some limited filtering: you can search for only paid apps, but not also excluding IAPs. This was not a lot of help. (The iPhone App Store does not have any filtering.)

There are third party App Store search engines, and I found one of them, AppCrawlr, that does allow you to do this search. But it is quite slow and unwieldy (e.g. completely refreshing the page, slowly, every time you select a new facet to filter on).

In the end I wasn’t able to find her anything I was satisfied with. I had the device with possibly the greatest potential for education in my hands, but couldn’t find any software I was happy to put on it to give to my daughter. However this somewhat depressing thought was offset by the other thought I had: this is a problem that needs solving.

So, I have made a search engine that lets you do this: https://appapp.io. Here’s the search for maths games that are paid without IAPs rated at least 3.5 stars.:

And this is the app I found with it:

https://appapp.io/gb/app/maths-skill-builders-primary/541619420

This blog post appeared originally at http://blog.appapp.io/post/131747237960/the-raison-detre-of-appappio