There was no word of it during Apple’s Rock and Roll event this morning, but iTunes 9 and the revamped iTunes Store comes with at least one big surprise: a new section for “Top Grossing” applications on the App Store, which now fits alongside the “Top Paid” and “Top Free” apps on the right hand side of the screen (this is normally the first place people go to check out new apps). So why does this matter?
Since launching, applications in the “Top Apps” lists on iTunes have done very well — if you can make it to the top 50 or the top 10, you can expect to see your sales figures get a very significant boost. Unfortunately, up until now the store has done a poor job helping high quality and more expensive apps get much exposure. Sure, there’s been a “Top Paid’ section, but this was gauged by popularity alone and has been dominated by apps that cost a dollar or two, since those were the apps that people were most likely to buy impulsively. This meant that “premium” apps — say, those running $5, $10, or Heaven forbid, $20 — had a much harder time getting any exposure.
The new Top Grossing section should help with this. Now apps that have sold moderately well at a high price will have a chance to get as much exposure as a cheap app that has sold very well. To give an idea of the difference, here’s a list of the current price of each app in the Top Grossing section, which includes applications that run as high as $99.99. In comparison, the Top Paid section currently has nine out of ten top apps selling at $2.99 or less (the one outlier is at $4.99).
Top Grossing
- I Am T-Pain — $2.99
- AppBox Pro — $0.99
- TomTom U.S. & Canada — $99.99
- Uno — $4.99
- Golfshot: Golf GPS — $29.99
- The Game of Life Classic Edition — $4.99
- Modern Combat: Sandstorm — $6.99
- Scrabble — $4.99
- MobileNavigator North America — $89.99
- Civilization Revolution — $4.99
Also worth pointing out — it looks like Apple is heavily downplaying its Free Apps section, which currently only has one application appearing on the App Store’s homepage.
If apple could only offer a free way to try out software before actually purchasing it, that would be something!
App developers are going to get even more screwed with this change because it’s even harder for apps to be discovered. High quality and more expensive apps get much exposure. Good luck developers. Everything depends on Apple!
Great and effective idea.
Very smart idea. Top grossing section will sure help the users choose a good app in a short search. As App Store has plenty apps it is hard to decide the right app.
Top Free and Top Paid sections now give an outline to the latest tends and interests among people. Hope this will make App developers to do more to bring their app in this top list.
As a consumer, this makes no sense to me. What do I care what the top grossing Apps are? Best sellers lists do make sense, but not top gross.
As a developer, pundit or anyone interested in data/trends in the App store it is very interesting.
Let’s face it, consumers would rather spend less, not more, to get Apps. Why would I look on this list? What’s in it for me (consumer)?
Same reasoning for why a premium App store is not a good idea.
It’s become clear that the “volume” chart is not indicative of the real value of applications. I personally find the top 25 purchased nearly useless – there are usually a few quality finds, but the list is always 2/3 filled with impulse/gag apps like “Sheep Launcher” and “Moron Test”.
I can already see that the top grossing list gives me a better impression of apps that provide more value than a 5 minute laugh – deeper games, robust services (like MLB At Bat) and “real” productivity apps like Quickoffice.
The idea of highlighting top grossing apps is that these are the apps which the market – composed of your peers who also own the required palmtop – have collectively chosen to fund. It’s relevant if someone finds reason to invest $20 in an app instead of $1 in twenty; it’s interesting if thousands of people do.
It’s not the only way to separate the grain from the chaff, but it’s not bad.
OTOH downplaying the free apps is in Apple’s interest, since they are a commission seller, but not necessarily that of the customer. Sometimes the right price really is $0.
I do wonder why they don’t present different selections of feature boxes to random users and do A/B testing of conversion rates. Possibly their almost obsessive devotion to a consistent user experience.
Top Grossing is a great feature but other than that, they’ve BROKEN the App Store even more:
1) All categories are now ‘hidden’ underneath a hard to find dropdown menu
2) No more subcategories. The Games section needs subcategories and now it’s gone.
App developers are going to get even more screwed with this change because it’s even harder for apps to be discovered.
? I still see the subcategories…
On the iPhone App store they’re still there but iTunes 9 App Store hides categories and removes subcategories.
So funny to see Apple announcing the Top Grossing apps when we announced it 24h with exactly the same name
http://blog.app...op-50-most-reve
Funny also to find that most apps are also there (with a 50% us sample)
I’m still using http://uquery.com to find iphone/ipod touch apps. iTunes is getting better but still not easy to find good applications!
This is nothing more than a continuation of what they’ve already been doing: Giving more exposure to apps that are already selling well. This does nothing to help smaller developers actually *get* exposure for their apps.
Umm… Still using iTunes 8. Where did Categories go?
I’m on the App Store home page and the list of categories that used to be on the left hand side is gone.
Just upgraded(?) to iTunes 9. Still didn’t see categories anywhere.
Then, I discovered that if you move the mouse over the “App Store” link at the top of the page, the subcategories drop down. This is VERY unintuitive. Unless you actually mouseover the App Store link, you don’t even see that there MIGHT be something under it. At the very least, the “App Store” link should sport a drop down arrow at all times.
This really sucks. New users will never notice the categories. They’ll be forced surfing around the “New and Noteworthy”, “What’s Hot”, “Top Paid”, etc.
Good luck developers. Your discoverability factor just plummeted. If you aren’t already in the top lists, you’ll never be found now.
Yep, I’m completely baffled as to why they decided to do this. As if it wasn’t already hard enough to get your app noticed on the App Store.
Without categories, it’s impossible now.
http://www.appgiveaway.com gives developers a chance to promote their paid apps by wy of a giveaway, and the opportunity of having their apps reviewed in the App Store fast
Unfortunately, the slapped a pretty page on the front of the app store and didn’t follow through in each of the categories. Those numbers would have helped there as well.
An important news for software developers!