Is the App Store moving towards continuous featuring?
Every app developer is looking forward to it: getting featured by Apple in the App store is the ultimate reward (too many times overrated) for the hard work put behind months of development and design, especially coming from the most powerful company in the world. But most importantly it is also a free marketing check from Apple allowing developers to ingest thousands and up to hundreds of thousands of new users in a matter of days (and some developers are unfairly more featured than others….).
No wonder everyone is looking forward to appearing in the “BEST NEW APPS”. Getting featured is the best free way to market your app. But…
The rule: Thursday bell
But every developer also knows it: it is impossible to predict or control how this happens. Apple has its own mysterious rules and ways very few understand (many times those who are actually featured don’t know it until this happens!). One of which: Apple picks a few apps once a week and will update the editorial section with a few lucky ones who will get featured for about a week in all or part of the country app store or subsections -categories, special section — (about 20 to 40 apps out of thousands new apps per week). The updated showcase is traditionally taking place on Thursday about mid-day PST time.
The exception to the rule: friends and family
Very rarely would Apple break that rule and allow some apps to be featured in between featured cycle. And it sometimes does not go unnoticed . Some hand picked high profile developers who have a particular relation with Apple, or an app that is under news spotlights, or an app made by a “famous brand” or in which Apple has a particular interest (eg HBO now when launched at WWC). And of course Apple own apps when they are updated and worth a feature (no bias here, of course).
The new rule: any day
For the past weeks i observed Apple started to feature apps with no particular agenda, on a continuous basis. Nearly every day (week-end excluded) news apps get featured and no more one big batch on thursday.
The only thing that remains updated once a week are the editor’s choice and the free app of the week
Here are a few cases i observed this week
I am not 100% sure this new pattern is something Apple is going to maintain but i would say there is a good chance this happens. I always thought this once a week process was broken because it gives the impression apps come only once a week when they come in every day. It’s as if news sites would update only once a week giving you the news only after they happened.
Also for those wondering: it does not seem that Apple has changed the period of highlight once you are featured — about a week (in some rare cases 2 weeks)
update feb 22nd: this is confirmed. i keep observing those kind of continuous updates. those just today (btw they broke mostly first on Product Hunt, it could be Apple editorial team is using this as a way to spot what to feature)
Why this matters
This is a good news for app developers and product managers: it makes the process more fluid and it gives more chances to be discovered as your app gets launched without the need to maintain an artificial launch date or release schedule because you’re featured on Thursdays.
News makers will need to pay more attention to keep track of what’s new in that section. Many bloggers have a weekly reminder waiting to spot what’s new. This effort will have to be continuous now.
Spreading new features continuously is a good thing and will allow more apps to be showcased. I guess Apple went for this because the number of apps worth featuring is just increasing but also because of the platform pressure reasons so they can keep an edge (apps being also featured on Google play).
Overall this is a good news for app discovery: more apps get exposed more often. Everyone knows how broken App discovery is (still) broken, years after launch and acquisitions later.
Here is the bad news though: if you’re featured in the best position in BEST NEW APPS (usually the first 4/5 apps from the left), this means you’ll enjoy far less download volumes because instead of staying there for a week, you’ll be pushed out to the right after a few days and therefore exposed to less users who don’t bother to scroll right. Some developers report tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of free download once featured. Expect this number to decrease.
One request to Apple: labels please
One thing i wish Apple did is to label apps that have actually been recently added to the selection and apps that are really new. Apple many times to present as “new”, apps that are just updated.
I also wish app developers had a way to keep a consistent visual sign or label that indicates they were once featured, after being featured by Apple. Why? because this is a good indicator of quality and a helpful way to make a decision on whether to download an app (although many times Apple featured poorly designed or rated apps). Apple already does that with Editor’s choice selection
Conclusion
Overall this is a good news. Although the app store has not yet even touched what should be the most important area to improve dramatically app discovery: Personalization. But that’s for a different conversation
Side note: this new process does not seem to be taken place on the mac app store and the apple tv app store (yet). i guess this is because there are not enough news apps there
update: indeed Apple confirms in one of their newest videos that the TV app store feature list is updated only thursdays
