Apple's app-store "results" have long been absolute bullshit. Apple lied to judges, developers, and the public about the app store. I wrote an application for a popular company; and even if you searched for the company's exact name, the application didn't show up in the top 300 results (which is where I gave up scrolling).

Instead, Apple delivered results with misspellings of the company name or applications that didn't contain any portion or variant of the search string AT ALL. Not in the app name, description, publisher name... anywhere.

I complained to Apple and got a boilerplate bullshit response. Then I raised a threat of legal action for Apple's hijacking and perversion of our trademark in their search results. This at least provoked a specific response, where Apple claimed that publisher name is "one of the top three" criteria for app-store search.

BULLSHIT.

Apple have enough customer behaviour data at hand to fully understand that there is very little they can't get away with.

So why not maximize profit?

App Store's UX has always been a show of excrement, and its search is wonky as hell. I can't imagine myself use that to discover apps, after having been shoved tons of dreck results up my behind the last time I've tried it.

I'd rather ask for app recommendations on 4chan or Reddit than browse App Store.

En-something-ification…

Google Play - at least on tablets - makes ads vs not ads much clearer and, if you're searching for one app very obviously (like "Kindle") puts that above the ads.

Companies good at selling and distributing ads have the confidence to not be annoying about them.

To be be honest, the worst Google-like thing about the before and after is how you have to scroll down to see actual results. On my iPhone, I get half of an app showing below the full sponsored app.

Just makes me want to find iOS apps through other means than the App Store.

This will always be a thing, the click metrics dictate it and to justify the costs to the company advertising and the low # of clicks, something has to be done to save the new revenue Ads give. They might as well add modal (psudeo popup) ads, because they will be there in 15yrs.

We really need more competition in the smartphone space. I think everyone hates this stuff.

This is an interesting left hand vs right hand thing. Apple is making it more difficult for find a particular app while coding assistance is making it easier to build one. At some point those curves intersect and the App Store becomes irrelevant.