Sure, we're primarily an iOS games site, but that doesn't stop us from tipping our hats at Google when they do something that could have a great impact on the overall mobile app scene. Per a report by TechCrunch, Google is now starting to downrank apps and games that perform poorly. The idea here is that Google has access to all sorts of analytics for things on the Play store. They know how often an app or game crashes, how much battery it uses, what percentage of people who download it delete it, and more. Plugging all these data points into their new Google Play algorithm penalizes games or apps that crash a lot, use loads of battery, and/or get deleted a ton. In theory, this means that higher quality apps should eventually float to the surface. Who knows how this will actually work in practice, but on paper, I love this idea. It's no secret that mobile platforms are absolutely jam packed with junk, clones, and scams. Even using something as simple as how many people delete a game, you learn tons of valuable data for how good something actually is. For example, when a bad clone gets released, people will inevitably download it, say "Hey, this isn't what I thought it was," and delete it. Google then deranks that particular game, as if it was any good, people wouldn't be deleting it so much.
Similarly, it encourages developers to really test their apps to make sure they're stable. The only metric cited here that I'm not super sure on is battery usage, as depending...