The avalanche of apps at the app store presents a lot of options for the potential buyer but also poses the question, how do you know what an app actually does? Especially if it is a new app?  The online shopper’s biggest problem is that s/he cannot know for sure what a product(app) really is, unless s/he downloads/installs it.

The best substitution for not being able to “experience” the product is to hear about it from the people who have actually bought it.  That’s why I have been closely following the  string of comments and reviews whenever I am looking at a new app.

Here is a snapshot from one string of “Customer Review” in the App store:

Helpful? To an extent, yes. In fact quite informative if you are a “categorical’ app buyer. For instance, if you are an arcade-game fan(atic) you will find the reviews about the new game on the block pretty informative. In fact, you might well get valid information about a similar game.

As a plus, there is this welcome trend of breezy, conversational tone among the customers in the app store.

However, information-wise these customer reviews are a bit lax, specially if you are looking for apps beyond your own domain. For instance, you are an avid arcade gamer, but you want a change and look-up  Sudoku in the app store. Supposing you do now know much about Sudoku and you know nothing about how those types of applications work, you might find the customer reviews a bit too technical.  Compare the App store review with the archaic Amazon. The Amazon customer review strings lack the  breezy, casual, conversational tone of  Apple’s, but for a prospective buyer, these more helpul as they provide much better information and insight about the product.

A bit more informative and useful comments along with the breezy tone? May be you won’t need to go anywhere else then for an App review and a prospective buy/download then. Consider the case of Lee5279xx who bought the now infamous “I Am Rich” app for $999.99, thinking that there was after all something beneath the shining digital red ruby.