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Oh, the App Store. It is both the joy of the iOS user and the bane of our app discovery. Admittedly, the discovery software has improved over the years, but Apple is still sorely behind when it comes to finding new apps and games based on likes and wants. Today, an iOS 7.1 iPhone user unwittingly discovered something new being implemented into an App Store search that may improve discovery.
According to AppleInsider, Twitter user Olga Osadcha stumbled across a new feature while searching for an app. Her search was for a time planner. In addition to the typical app card listings that appear, a list of related results showed up at the top of her screen, directly under the search bar.
The related searches for “time planner” included time schedule, daily organizer, and more. Osadcha noted that one search was for “calander,” including the misspelling of the word. It appears that results are based on popular search terms of phrases typed into the search bar by other users.
At the time of the discovery, Osadcha noted that it was only working on her iPhone running iOS 7.1 and did not appear on her iPad. Other Twitter users commented that they did not see the same results on their own iPhone.
Today, after testing the same search criteria as Osadcha, I was unsuccessful at seeing the related search on my iPhone or iPad, so if it is not a hoax (which I don’t believe it to be), then Apple might have been running a small-scale test that is no longer active.
It would be nice to see the related results show up in the App Store. It would be one more step to finding new apps that might be of interest to us.
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