Highlights The Key Differences in The New App Store

Apple is known for its innovation. Once again it has gotten the market talking, with the redesign that it has undertaken for the iOS6 app store. This article highlights the key differences in the new app store along with tips on how designers of iPhone apps can utilize these changes for their benefits.

My bet is, you’ve heard this already if you are on this page, but since you and I are both in love with the technology that iOS has to offer, here is my account of all the sizzling hot new features of the iOS6.

The Reshaped App Store

The new look and feel of the iOS6 apps store has met with mixed reaction. Most have been in favor of the kind of stuff that has been incorporated in the new redesign. This may be because Apple has kept the overall feel much the same since the beginning and I guess, people like innovation in order to break the monotony.

The most striking feature of the new store is the Cards style display. The apps in the new format as displayed in the form of Cards. Also every search only brings a maximum of 25 results. These results, all of which is displayed in the form of cards, give out information in a clear and lucid format.

So if you are on the apps store through your iPhone, you will be able to see only 1 result per page. With an iPad you can see about 6 results in every page. You will have to swipe from right to left to see the next page.

App rank

Now the catch is that if your app ranks somewhere between the numbers 11 to hundred under any specific keyword or a combination of keywords you have chosen for it, your generic downloads will be affected greatly. This is because you can't expect the visitor to keep on swiping through the pages on and on. This is why it is evident that you must put in a lot of effort to ensure your app is placed at the right place with the right keywords in the pocket.

Design

Also ensure that the first screenshot is really, massively, supremely attractive. This is the make or break chance that you have for your app. With the enhanced display features it gives you a lot of space to impress your users. It gives an equal opportunity to the others in the market too. This is why it is a cut throat competition in which you must excel.

Categories

The new app store has the categories hidden. Their basic thought that went behind was that about 63% of app discovery is a result of searches and not plain old browsing. The Categories have now been replaced by Genius (their new search bot) which will help in searching the application based on specific keywords.

Reviews

So now, customer reviews have become extremely important because Apple has dedicated a whole new tab to the review section of the apps. You must ensure that you encourage users to write reviews about your apps. Even if there wasn’t an entire section, it would have been obvious that reviews are critical, because people almost always check on the reviews of any product before downloading it.

This is owing to two reasons:

i) Every app takes up space in the phone. People will obviously like to check if it’s worth blocking all that space.
ii) Malicious activity can happen through apps. So people like to check reviews to identify if the application is a secure one or not.

    Daliah Rai

About the Guest Author:

The Author of this article is currently associated with a team of iPhone App Development working with VITEB, a mobile app development company in India. They specialize in Blackberry application development service apart from all other major mobile platforms. They offer their services to all the countries of the world. Follow US @Viteb