The App Store is undergoing a change. Apple has changed the app search algorithm

Apple recently adjusted the search algorithm in its App Store so that fewer apps from its own production appear in the first search results. This was reported by Phil Schiller and Eddy Cue in an interview for the paper The New York Times.

Specifically, it was an improvement to a feature that sometimes grouped apps by manufacturer. Because of this way of grouping, the search results in the App Store could sometimes give the impression that Apple wants to prioritize its applications. The change was implemented in July of this year, and according to The New York Times, the appearance of Apple apps in search results has dropped significantly since then.

However, in an interview, Schiller and Cue strongly rejected the claim that there was any malicious intent on the part of Apple in the previous way of displaying search results in the App Store. They described the mentioned change as an improvement rather than a bug fix as such. In practice, the change is visibly visible in search results for the query "TV", "video" or "maps". In the first case, the result of displayed Apple applications dropped from four to two, in the case of the terms "video" and "maps" it was a drop from three to a single application. Apple's Wallet application also no longer appears in the first place when entering the terms "money" or "credit".

When Apple introduced its Apple Card in March of this year, which can be used with the help of the Wallet application, the day after the introduction, the application appeared in the first place when entering the terms "money", "credit" and "debit", which was not the case before. The marketing team appears to have added the mentioned terms to the hidden description of the Wallet app, which, combined with user interaction, resulted in it being prioritized in the results.

According to Schiller and Cue, the algorithm worked correctly and Apple simply decided to put itself at a disadvantage compared to other developers. But even after this change, the analytics firm Sensor Tower noted that for more than seven hundred terms, Apple's apps appear in the top places in search results, even if they are less relevant or less popular.

The search algorithm analyzes a total of 42 different factors, from relevance to the number of downloads or views to ratings. Apple does not keep any records of search results.