Tech —

App Store gets an organizational boost in iOS 6

But it's not clear how much the Chomp acquisition is influencing search.

The App Store has been tweaked for iOS 6, with a more visually engaging layout.
Enlarge / The App Store has been tweaked for iOS 6, with a more visually engaging layout.

For iOS 6, Apple has made some significant changes to the layout and organization of the iOS App Store. While the benefits of Apple's acquisition of app discovery service Chomp don't appear to be fully realized yet, the new layout certainly has more visual appeal and, in my view, improved browsing. More importantly, however, Apple has improved the installation and update process in iOS 6, which no longer interferes with App Store use.

The new layout and organization is essentially identical to that revealed late last month in a developer test version of iOS 6. At the top of the main "Featured" tab is a rotating selection of featured app tiles, including "App of the Week," "Editor's Choice," or certain app collections such as "Games" or "News." Underneath is a swipe-able row of app icons in a certain featured category; swipe to the left to see more, or tap "See All" to bring up a standard scrolling list. On the iPhone, this category is currently "Great Games on iPhone 5." Below that is a swipe-able row of special app collections, followed by two more rows of featured apps. At the bottom of the page is a button to redeem a free app gift code or iTunes Store credit, and a button to access your iTunes Store account settings.

On the iPad, there's a little more room to display things a bit differently, but not significantly so. At the top, featured tiles use a Cover Flow-like display. The top featured category on the iPad is "New and Noteworthy." Underneath the rows of featured app icons are a grid of "Quick Links," which, on my iPad, had some display glitches. Given that these quick links go to areas already covered by other navigation elements, though, we suspect Apple might still be working on how best to use this area. The "Redeem" and "iTunes Account" buttons are again at the bottom.

The main App Store view on the iPhone (left) can be filtered by specific categories (right).
Enlarge / The main App Store view on the iPhone (left) can be filtered by specific categories (right).

By default, the Featured tab shows apps collected from all categories, but buttons on the top navigation bar allow you to choose from a list of specific app categories, including Games, Books, Lifestyle, Utilities, etc. The Newsstand and Games categories have sub-categories as well. Choosing any particular category will load a similar layout limited to apps in that particular category.

The Charts tab shows top "paid," "free," and "top grossing" apps. On the iPhone (or iPod touch) you get the horizontally scrolling icon rows, while the iPad shows vertically scrolling lists. All these icon views show the app icon, the app title, the relevant App Store category, the overall star rating, and the price. If you already own the app, the price button will change to say "open," or to "update" if an update is available.

You can still see the top paid, top free, and top grossing apps in any category.
You can still see the top paid, top free, and top grossing apps in any category.

Clicking an app loads a detail view on the iPhone, or opens the detail view in a pop-up overlay on the iPad. Here you can see the requisite screenshots, read the app's description, see version and compatibility details, etc. Reviews are broken out into a separate tab view, with options to "like" an app on Facebook if you have a Facebook account registered with iOS 6, or add your own rating or write a review if you have the app in question. Tapping on the "related" tab shows a list of apps by the same developer, or apps that other users also bought.

Scroll left to view screenshots, or scroll down to see more information about an app.
Enlarge / Scroll left to view screenshots, or scroll down to see more information about an app.
Reviews (left) and related apps (right) are in separate sub-tabs.
Enlarge / Reviews (left) and related apps (right) are in separate sub-tabs.

One interesting detail here is that you can navigate back through the detail views. On the iPhone, it uses the traditional back arrow control. On the iPad, the detail pop-ups slide to the left; tap the right edge peeking out from the left-hand side of the screen to slide it back into view (swiping doesn't work as you might expect it to here).

In the top right corner of app detail views is the iOS share button. Tapping it lets you share a link to the app via e-mail, SMS/iMessage, Twitter, or Facebook. Optionally, you can copy the App Store link to share by other means.

Under the Genius tab, you'll be presented with a selection of apps purportedly related to apps you already have installed (or have previously purchased). These apps are on virtual "cards," which show a sample screenshot in addition to the basic icon view data (mentioned above). A small text label tells you why Apple is telling you about a particular app; "Based on Hipstamatic," or "Based on SCRABBLE for iPad." There's also a "Not Interested" button at the bottom of each card, so you can tell the "Genius" algorithm that it guessed wrong.

Genius results show a series of app "cards" (left), while the app detail view pops up over the main view on the iPad (right).
Enlarge / Genius results show a series of app "cards" (left), while the app detail view pops up over the main view on the iPad (right).

On the iPhone, search is under its own tab; on the iPad, the search box is ever-present at the right of the top navbar. The App Store app will give you a list of autocomplete suggestions as you type; choose one or hit enter to get a list of result "cards," similar to the ones you see under the Genius tab (minus the "Not Interested" button). On the iPhone, you get a horizontally scrolling selection of cards; on the iPad, you'll get a scrolling grid. Notably, the iPad version of the App Store offers several options to filter the search results; show iPad apps or iPhone-only apps; filter by free or paid; or sort by relevance, popularity, rating, or release date. You can also limit results to particular categories as well.

App search on the iPad is always accessible from the top navbar (left), and the iPad also has a number of helpful filtering options not available on the iPhone.
Enlarge / App search on the iPad is always accessible from the top navbar (left), and the iPad also has a number of helpful filtering options not available on the iPhone.

Unfortunately, iPhone users don't appear to have any of these filtering options. And that's a shame, because search terms can still result in hundreds or even thousands of possibilities. Sorting through search results to find the particular app you are looking for can still be quite a chore, and it's not clear how much the App Store is benefitting from integration with Chomp's discovery algorithms. In a quick sample, though, it does seem that exact title matches always show the relevant app as the first result; that wasn't always the case with the search algorithms in previous App Store incarnations. I'm not sure there's even a way to do any serious objective testing outside of Apple, but my own subjective impression is that searching and app discovery seem only slightly better than before. The iPad's filtering options definitely help, but that won't be of any benefit to iPhone or iPod touch users.

Finally, there's the update tab, which as always lists all the available updates to apps you have installed on your device. On the iPhone, your list of purchased apps accessible from iCloud is accessible from a button in the Updates view, whereas the iPad has a dedicated tab to access your purchased apps. My main quibble here is that the "What's New" link is far too small on the iPhone, and often results in loading an app's detail view instead of showing the actual list of updates or fixes.

The return of sanity

However, the app updating process—indeed, the app installing process in general—has been vastly improved in iOS 6. Tap the "Update" button next to any app and it immediately downloads and installs. You don't have to enter your iTunes password, and you aren't kicked out to the Springboard as in previous iOS versions. (Imagine going to a real store where you had to find and purchase one item at a time, then were forced to leave the store before you bought anything else.) You can tap "Update All" and all the apps begin updating in place. After starting the update process, you can just go and browse or search for other apps.

The Updates tab looks largely the same (left), but apps now download in the background and don't force you to leave the App Store while installing (right).
Enlarge / The Updates tab looks largely the same (left), but apps now download in the background and don't force you to leave the App Store while installing (right).

The same is true for installing new apps, too. Tap Install, and the app downloads and installs in the background. You only ever need to enter your iTunes password when buying a paid app (or in-app purchase); if the app is free, or you are updating an existing app, no password is needed. The overall experience makes installing and updating much smoother. It may not be especially easier to find apps, but it's definitely easier to install them.

In all, the layout changes feel better; the App Store seems more visually attractive, and the app "card," scrolling icon rows, and new detail view all seem to encourage more user interaction. The new store makes browsing and searching more visceral, in a sense. Search algorithms do seem slightly improved, but it's certainly not as big a change as might have been expected given the acquisition of Chomp. The really amazing new "feature" is the improved app install and update process, which eliminates unnecessary password input and keeps users in the App Store app without interrupting their "shopping" experience.

Channel Ars Technica