App Store clutter reduction continues.

Monday, March 08, 2010 at 03:53 PM | Posted by LOOPRumors Staff

Now that many ”overtly sexual” applications that are not offered by a large brand have been givin a swift boot from the App Store, Apple is moving on to the removal of iPhone apps built using templates from app-building services.

The company is not nessasarily against templates, however the App Store has become clogged with applications made with them that simply replicate the function of a standard web page.

Apple wants to maintain the unique and perceived usefulness of the iPhone, according to observers, and the abundance of these types of apps threatens to dilute that.

“This is the ongoing balance point between encouraging innovation and growth on one side and wanting to tightly control user experience on the other,” says Medialets CEO Eric Litman in a report from TechCrunch. “Apple wants iPhone apps to be superior to Web experiences because they are extremely sticky and drive people specifically to buy the iPhone over competing smartphone platforms. Apps that are too simple or largely indistinguishable from the Web, other apps or particularly other apps on other platforms send the message to end users that the iPhone app ecosystem might not be particularly special.”