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Apple Improves App Store Search Algorithms

derek4484 said:
Something that is desperately needed. Unless you spell the app name exactly correct, it rarely finds what I'm looking for.
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Not just the "can't find" rather the "look at what else is out there that has nothing to do with your search results" that irritates me. 😕
 
macduke said:
Search on the app store was always terrible. I remember always having to have the app name exactly right. I also remember lots of irrelevant results showing up when searching for simple things like Adobe's apps. I recently did a clean install of iOS 9 on my 6s because I had some issues with random freezes during the night making my alarm go off (along with a hot home button, ended up being replaced by Apple) so I had to search for a lot of my apps to install them from scratch. I remember when doing the Adobe apps it would bring up guide books and other weird stuff as the top result. Even now I just tried searching Lightroom and accidentally typed Loghtroom and it still found it fine! Kinda sad that it took them this many years to get basic search right. Even I setup the WordPress install for our news site at work to search for partials and across various pieces of metadata and tags in the database. Why did it take this long?
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Still a mess - has this been rolled out?

Searched for "Mother Battles" - wanted to see if one of my fun time wasters "Mother of all Battles" showed up, where, and what else.
It was #1 - yeah!!!
but ... of the top 10 listed (6S+) it was #1 and all total only 4/10 had either "Mother" or "Battle" in it.
But I had Zombies and Heroes and Dragons and Fish and bubbles and..... show up.

It still needs work looks like. 😎
 
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derek4484 said:
Something that is desperately needed. Unless you spell the app name exactly correct, it rarely finds what I'm looking for.
Click to expand...

Like if you didn't type the entire name "Trolls vs Leprechauns" it was absolutely impossible to find my game. And people spelt "vs" like "versus" instead, and forgot the S'es at the end of Trolls and Leprechauns.

This is one of the few things Google has always done better than Apple (and please let's keep Maps out of this thread 😛)
 
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PsykX said:
Like if you didn't type the entire name "Trolls vs Leprechauns" it was absolutely impossible to find my game. And people spelt "vs" like "versus" instead, and forgot the S'es at the end of Trolls and Leprechauns.

This is one of the few things Google has always done better than Apple (and please let's keep Maps out of this thread 😛)
Click to expand...

Too late I already brought that up.😛
 
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Cool but the app store is filled with tons of copycat apps. There's lots of outdated apps too. Something needs to change there.

Perhaps Apple should create a totally new app store for 64bit apps in the next iPhone update and then retire the current app store. It won't happen but it would be nice. It will be quantity over quality tho.
 
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Is it hard to write algorithms? For a company that builds the hardware of the iphone on a yearly basis and improve the OS, algorithms should be a piece of cake, or am I wrong?

Also the top charts seem to be stagnant. Plague, Minecraft, and Akinator the Genie has been up there since like the iPhone 5 launch. Do people keep deleting and redownloading these apps or what?
 
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I'd like to see if u'r searching for an app, if it has comments and based how how many postive 4+ star or 3+ star comments they comes up front above others in addition.

This could also make it better for say things like searching for say the best racing app (generally) over the actual app name..

I know there are top games section of other charts, but i don't think that goes by comments does it ?

(FYI. MR users must know when i post always,, they like 'spying' on me 🙂 )
 
Took them long enough.

Seems like they realized that all AI is worthless unless you have a good ground truth.

And yes, I do see an increase in clicks and sales since Nov 12. Thank you Apple!

EDIT:
Improving search "by utilizing metrics like whether an app was featured, positive reviews and press mentions from the web" is BAD! This is the pure opposite of what Apple just now achieved. This would give opportunists a way better chance of promoting an app in a fradulent way. User reviews and the web have never been a reliable source about quality. They can be manipulated almost arbitrarily.
 
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duffman9000 said:
Apple "search" has sucked for years. It's always sucked. The only thing worse, which also uses "search", is Apple spell "correct".
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I think both work quite well to be honest - anything involving language is a difficult thing to work with as it's a constantly changing environment as language evolves. I think Apple has done an admirable job of their tech in search.
 
MacBH928 said:
Is it hard to write algorithms?
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It's not hard to write algorithms. Writing optimized algorithms that satisfy both most developers and Apple's bean counters? Now that's more interesting. Because the App store business now generates well over a Billion dollars a month in sales.

That means that if some engineer at Apple tweaks something just slightly non-optimally, and total app sales drops just 0.1%, Apple will lose over a Million bucks in almost pure profit that month. Try doing that without getting fired.
 
rodpascoe said:
I think both work quite well to be honest - anything involving language is a difficult thing to work with as it's a constantly changing environment as language evolves. I think Apple has done an admirable job of their tech in search.
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Admirable compared to what? Pulling up my old Thomas guide?
 
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About time, the App Store has always sucked in terms of searching for anything.
Apple has gotten away from simplicity and function which is sad to see. OSX is also like that, with many Windows users telling me it's too complicated.
Download something and you get a dmg file, some other remnant left over, etc. Just automate everything.

You also have to look carefully to find out how to buy a song in iTunes. How about a button that says BUY and add to wishlist, etc. You can also no longer buy multiple songs at once.
If I were Cook, I would look into making Apple what it once was-simple and intuitive
 
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