We bring good news in the Holy War on Michael Quach! Android Market database AppBrain, which we’ve only recently discovered for some reason, has today added an automatic spam-app filtering option to its online listings, which unhighlights (dehighlights?) apps from those developers with suspiciously high app output and low user rankings.
Here’s how it works, according to AppBrain:
We calculated statistics on all developers in the AppBrain database, which covers all apps that are available in the US. In total there were 28,936 apps created by 7,429 developers. Even though the average number of apps per developer was just 3.9, there were 32 developers who launched more than 100 apps in the Android Market. The number of developers grouped by their number of apps launched is shown in the figure below.
We used the ratings given by users to categorize apps as good (rating over 4 stars), average (between 3 and 4 stars), bad (lower than 3 stars) or too few ratings to decide.
The following figure shows apps broken down by quality for each developer output category:Even though the high-output developers are few in number, they produce a giant proportion of all apps. These apps are often too unpopular to have a rating at all, and if they have, they’re less likely to be rated well. However, not all high volume developers are spammers. Two counterexamples are for instance Better Android and K-J Themes. They both have published more than 100 apps, and they’re almost all rated quite well
We’ve been meaning to mention AppBrain for a while now, mainly due to the staggeringly clever way you can sign into the site with your Gmail account, download the AppBrain Market Sync app to your Android phone, then generate a live list of the app contents of your own phone – and post it on the web via an RSS feed.
Those are our apps. This is technology very, very far beyond our understanding.
And that’s the AppBrain PC listing of the apps on the EuroDroid HTC Magic at this very moment in time, from where you can schedule apps for removal – LIKE GOOGLE SHOULD LET YOU DO.
If it has all gone according to plan, this space below should contain an automatically generated list of the apps on our phone. It may take a while to show up…
Let’s hope there aren’t any shameful secret Michael Quach lifestyle tips apps hidden away in among that little lot. And we’re on the last puzzle of Red Stone, by the way.
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A slim and glamorous phone from Sony Ericsson, with the sharpest display around. It’s no powerhouse and the screen’s not the biggest out there, but we don’t mind. Because it’s cute.
LG’s first glasses-free 3D phone is a heavy, fat monster, with a clever 3D effect that works rather well. As a smartphone, though, it’s heavy and underwhelming.
A very shiny thing from Sony Ericsson, with a 3.7″ screen and Android 2.3.3 inside. But is it exciting enough to win fans in today’s spec-obsessed market? Can man live on one core alone?
INQ’s Android phone is an interesting “boutique” piece of hardware, packed with unique interface customisations that go far beyond the headline Facebook integration. We like it a lot.
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