App Store Now Permitting Only One Category Per Application
As of Friday, July 12, around 5pm, we were seeing 649 distinct apps in the store. However, 457 of those applications were listed in two different categories in the store, for example Sextuple Word Challenge was listed in Games and Education. And one, Xhake Shake, was actually showing up in three categories (Entertainment, Games & Sports). I noticed earlier today that this is no longer the case. Each of the 794 available as of 3pm EST today are now listed in a single category only. While this change will certainly make our reporting life much easier here at Medialets, I wonder what impact this will have on revenue for the paid apps. Is this going to make is easier or harder for app store users to find the “right” app?
Tags: analysis, app store, categories, data, iphone, metrics, stats
July 15th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Well, having lucked out of the Jesus phone on the 1st day, I can only speak generically, not directly with the experience of searching the App Store.
While categorizing apps in only 1 category does seem a bit restricted, perhaps one way to make apps known is to allow searching by tags? Let the app developer define, say, 5 tags or each app. Allow users to search by tags. The category problem should be solved.
Still waiting for the iPhone stock at my nearest retailer.
-atul