Ubuntu's Software Center (henceforth USC) is a great concept--a single place from which to download all of your apps with a graphical user interface (GUI), rather than the "sudo apt-get" terminal code that I can never seem to get to work correctly (despite copying and pasting instructions from the website). Moreover, the USC theoretically keeps track of software on your computer so you can easily uninstall software you don't want or don't use. You can even add third party software sources and browse their apps through the center.
However, as conceptually great as it might be, the USC has a host of serious problems (or perhaps better wording, "...has a lot of room for improvement").
- The absolute worst aspect of the Center is that its software selection is often lacking or not up to date. I'm not sure how often it gets update, but I can never seem to find the fun new applications or themes I want. Sure, there is the ability to add more sources, but adding them and using them is a user-interface nightmare.
- A close second, the search box is really the only way to find your software and I'm not sure how it actually works, but it seems to bring up the least relevant items unless you are searching an exact name. Yeah, you can shop through the different categories and subcategories and browse through lists of software, but that's not exactly ideal. Basically you enter in your query string and it will return at best an obscure list of results that don't evidently pertain to the search string. I'm sure there's some rhyme or reason as to why the results were returned, but it certainly isn't apparent. Furthermore, the results aren't sortable and you can't search by application name, type, description, etc.
- There's no concept of popularity nor are there user ratings. There are no reviews and the descriptions are often worthless. The tiny screenshot you *might* get for an app isn't enlargeable.
These are a few of the other lacking-features which could make for a great experience.
Honestly, piracy and security problems aside, I anticipate the Mac App Store will be for-profit version of what Ubuntu Software Center should have already been. The good news: it will probably give USC's developers something
It's disappointing that so many obvious features were missed (perhaps they were planned for a later release; however, there didn't seem to be a big push for an improved USC), but to Ubuntu's credit, their concept revolutionized software acquisition on the Linux platform and at least it seems like the lost ground can be easily made up if the demand is there.
Here are some of my ideas for improving the Center:
- Improve the search
- Add the ability to search by...
- title
- description
- categories
- tags
- popularity
- source/ppa
- etc
- Allow the search results to be sorted by the above columns
- Highlight the reason a given result was returned (was a word from the search string in the description, name, etc)
- User Feedback
- allow users to post ratings and reviews
- display popularity and rating in search results, etc
- Make it easier to add/remove software sources and make it clear which applications are from which sources
- I suppose this one is on the community, but a lot of the software sources I've come across only have one or two applications in them, which is pretty much a waste. I'd like to see communities acquire fifteen or so apps in a software source to improve the experience for everybody. Having said all that, I don't really know what goes into making/maintaining a ppa, so these are only my two cents.
Ultimately, the 'fixes' are easy, I just hope they are employed; however, it doesn't seem like this is a priority as Canonical seems to be prioritizing Unity and other projects. Here's hoping!
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