Apple's App Store Has A Big Search Problem, And This Developer Has Proof

Flickr/Blake Patterson

With over 1.2 million apps, Apple's App Store is home to some of the best apps in existence. And yet the process of searching and discovering them is incredibly frustrating unless you know exactly what you're looking for.

The App Store's issues with search and discoverability is something we've written about in the past, but Apple has yet to make any major visible changes to remedy the issue.

It's a complex problem, and it helps to see a concrete example of how muddled searching for an app has become, which is exactly what app developer Gedeon Maheux has done. 

Maheux is the co-founder of The Iconfactory, a software development studio that created the popular Twitter app "Twitterrific," which launched in the App Store in 2008.

"For small developers like myself, a potential customer's ability to find your app on the App Store is critical," Maheux writes in a post on his blog. "If customers can't easily discover and download your software, your app (and indeed your business) has little chance of survival."

To prove his point, Maheux posted a list of the results for when he types in the word "Twitter" in the App Store search bar on his iPhone. "

"To make the list easier to parse, I've called out all apps that allow a user to directly read AND post to Twitter in bold," Maheux writes. "Everything else is either a game, a utility, or some other social network enhancement."

Here's the list of what comes up when you type in "Twitter" on the App store.

1. Twitter
2. Instagram
3. Framatic
4. Tweegrow
5. Pick Jointer
6. Happy Park
7. Crop Pic
8. Wayze Social GPS
9. Flipboard
10. InstaCollage Pro
11. Symbol Keyboard
12. Find Unfollowers
13. Cool Fonts
14. Symbolizer
15. Big Emoji
16. Get Followers
17. Framatic Mess
18. Alarm Clock HD
19. Textgram
20. Hootsuite
21. Emoticon Art
22. Textizer Fonts
23. 4 For Follow
24. Pixable
25. Just Unfollow
26. Unfollow for Twitter
27. ColorEffects
28. Photobooth
29. G-Whizz
30. New Cool Text
31. Google+
32. Step
33. Tweetcaster for Twitter
34. Vine
35. Camera Awesome
36. InstaEffect Effects
37. Emoticons and Emoji
38. TwitBoost Pro
39. PickGram
40. Insta Scrapbook
41. SpaceEffect
42. Orbs
43. MB2:YouTube
44. Facetouch HD Light
45. Paper Toss Friends
46. Vodio
47. Frame UR Life
48. HayWire Text Free
49. Nimble Quest
50. InstaCollage Pro
51. TweetBoost Pro
52. Right Behind
53. Emoji>
54. Follow Tool for Twitter
55. Color Cap
56. Emoji for iOS 8
57. Camera+
58. Emoji Emoticons
59. Text2Pic
60. Emoji 2 Emoticons
61. Fonts-Cool Font Maker
62. Echofon Pro
63. LiPix Pro
64. Alarm Clock HD
65. Smilebox Moments
66. Everypost for Social Media
67. Google Apps Browser Plus
68. Clipchat
69. VPN Express
70. ÜberSocial for Twitter
71. You Doodle
72. TweetBot 2 (iOS 6)
73. Stocks Live
74. Stocks Live Essentials
75. GameFly
76. Trendyful
77. Oz Quake
78. Buffer for Social Media
79. Yahoo! News Digest
80. Wefollow for Twitter
81. TweetBot 3
82. Photo Notes HD
83. Emoji Art and Text
84. Find Unfollowers Pro
85. Followers for Twitter
86. Follower Boost for Twitter
87. Color Effects FX HD
88. Double Ball
89. TwitGrow for Twitter
90. Twittelator Pro (iOS 6)
91. Emoji Art
92. TwitBoost Pro for Twitter
93. Jedi Lightsaber
94. Get Followers for Instagram
95. Aqua Emoji Keyboard
96. Bloomberg
97. Emoji for Messaging
98. Facely HD for Facebook
99. Timehop
100. Twitterriffic 5
101. IFTTT
102. FollowBoost for Twitter
103. Hyperlapse for Instagram
104. Freebie
105. PhotoFrame
106. Text Pics Free
107. Funimate
108. Followers + for Twitter
109. Emoji Keypad
110. Follower Plus
111. TweetBoost
112. Wow Followers for Twitter
113. Table Top Racing
114. TwitBird Free for Twitter
115. Singing Texts
116. Dice World 6 Free
117. Cool Frames and Picture Effects
118. Bamboo Wallet
119. JustFollow for Instagram
120. Twitter Check
121. TurboBoost for Vine
122. PhillyD Official
123. Hybrid Fonts
124. Mixgram
125. Color Zen
126. Keyboard Pro
127. Symbol Keyboard
128. Tweetlogix for Twitter
...
148. Echofon for Twitter
...
167. TweetList (iOS 6)

Maheux's list shows that Apple's search alogrithm shouldn't be based strictly on popuarlity or number of downloads, but by relevance. Otherwise, you're left to sift through dozens of apps like "GameFly," "Alarm Clock HD," and "Jedi Lightsaber."

 

Apple has made attempts to fix this issue. In 2012, it acquired Chomp, an app search engine that allowed users to search for apps based on function and use instead of simply by name. In 2013, Apple acquired data analytics firm Topsy, an official Twitter partner that has indexed hundreds of billions of tweets since Twitter's launch.

It is widely speculated that both Chomp and Topsy will be one day incorporated into Apple's App Store search, but there hasn't been any noticeable improvement yet, and meanwhile developers like Maheux are worried and waiting.

To read Maheux's full blog post, click here.