One of the longest running problems on the iOS App Store has been discovery of apps.
Since its launch in 2008, developers and users alike have been asking Apple for better ways to both promote and discover great new apps. With over 650,000 apps currently on the App Store, the current system of finding new apps is clearly being pushed beyond what it was intended for.
According to Apple’s senior vice president of world-wide product marketing, Phil Schiller, Apple is doing a “tremendous amount” of work to make sure that best applications on the App Store get promoted and receive the attention they deserve.
In an effort to keep the App Store an easy to use, simple place to discover new apps, Apple is rolling out a completely new interface for the store, starting with iOS 6. The redesign seems to focus heavily on featured and hot apps, with less of a focus being but on app categories. This, along with recent moves such as the introduction of “App Of The Week,” and Noteworthy sections are likely what Schiller is referring to when he mentioned that “The opportunity is the best that it has ever been for software developers.”
Even with these changes being made to the App Store, Apple will need to continue to make great strides forward if they want developers to continue choosing iOS before Android in terms of development. So far, it appears the new App Store layout provides nothing radically new, but this could change soon, due to Apple’s purchase of the app search engine Chomp, back in February of this year. Regardless of what happens, this is reassurance that Apple is, as Tim Cook would like to say, “Doubling down” on the App Store.
Schiller also mentions that “more can be done to help users have control over what apps and advertisers want to do with data.” This is hopefully a hint at what we can expect to see Apple do with Chomp in the future, and how they will be able to integrate the service into the current App Store.
Source: WSJ
