tell me what app can do the apper-catalog trick as easily
https://github.com/manateelazycat/deepi ... are-center
a google image search for 'deepin-software-center' will give you an overview.
The link I'm pasting, to be clear, it's the prior deepin utility, not the newer dumbed-down "grid of graphical tiles" UI.
not basing my decisions on pointless criteria
Agree with that, but might disagree as to what is / is not "pointless".
The "reviews" and "ratings" provided within the various software stores are (IMO) pointless -- because most of the reviewers aren't qualified to offer a well-founded review.
Typical review content ---} "Don't install this it sux an sth. else i hate pain taxes" or "this da bestest evah i lovit ponies! woot!"
Which of apper's features are singularly unique, or are especially well implemented?
It's been over a year since I looked at it; it didn't favorably impress me.
Hmmm, is apper "deprecated"?
(from foggy, perhaps flawed, memory): the author/dev got a bit sidetracked/entangled (literally wound up in jail, but that's a story for a different day) working on "Tanglu" distro derivative of ubuntu. It's a full-blown 2yr+ old linux distribution, infractrastructure-wise at least, with "approximately zero" users. Hey, did I just invent a new word there? Infractrastructure? He and his buddy have taken turns writing blog posts and begging for donations across the past couple years. Any prior audience, I suspect, is pretty well begged-out. No money, no worky -- IIRC what kept the "apper development" wheels greased was funding from a commercial sponsor and that ran out / dried up a year or so back.
https://tangluusers.org/forum/announcements-5/
^---- a tanglu bookmark, not directly to anything specifically enlightening regarding apper, but you could certainly inquire there