Apple’s App Store Gets a Smarter Search Engine

Shank wrote: post #5

Using the exact search this article describes, "Get Followers on Twitter" is the second result on iPad. If this is the app that Apple considers the second most relevant result, I'm gonna say the jury is still out on App Store search. http://i.imgur.com/5Lca7cw.jpg

Searching for tweetbot here (UK) brings up a calculator app second and only 3 results. I expect it's a phased rollout.

Re: Apple’s App Store Gets a Smarter Search Engine

#8

Post by arrrg » Sun, Nov 15, 2015, 11:01 PM UTC

grub5000 wrote: post #7

Shank wrote: post #5

Using the exact search this article describes, "Get Followers on Twitter" is the second result on iPad. If this is the app that Apple considers the second most relevant result, I'm gonna say the jury is still out on App Store search. http://i.imgur.com/5Lca7cw.jpg

Searching for tweetbot here (UK) brings up a calculator app second and only 3 results. I expect it's a phased rollout.

You are supposed to search for Twitter as a test. Tweetbot doesn't make much sense as a search term, at least for finding other Twitter clients. I think the search results are actually quite great, considering. (The calculator is an app by the makers of Tweetbot. I actually had that same use case before: I knew that some developer of some app made some other great app, but I didn't know its name – so I would search for the app I knew, go to it and then the dev’s page and then to the app I actually want. So showing other apps of that same dev in a targeted search for the most popular by far app from that dev makes total sense to me.)

Re: Apple’s App Store Gets a Smarter Search Engine

#9

Post by markdown » Mon, Nov 16, 2015, 12:06 AM UTC

Now they need to work on OS X search, which is atrocious!

Re: Apple’s App Store Gets a Smarter Search Engine

#10

Post by jonathankoren » Mon, Nov 16, 2015, 12:11 AM UTC

arrrg wrote: post #8

grub5000 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Searching for tweetbot here (UK) brings up a calculator app second and only 3 results. I expect it's a phased rollout.

You are supposed to search for Twitter as a test. Tweetbot doesn't make much sense as a search term, at least for finding other Twitter clients. I think the search results are actually quite great, considering. (The calculator is an app by the makers of Tweetbot. I actually had that same use case before: I knew that some developer of some app made some other great app, but I didn't know its name – so I would search f…

I would argue the calculator is still a fail. If I searched or Tweetbot, the top hit should obviously be Tweetbot, but I would argue that the other results should be other Twitter clients. A calculator simply isn't. Even worse, the 3rd result is for a different tapped named "Tweetbot" When you scan through the results, Calcbot is really the odd one out. Now, if I had searched for Tapbot (the maker of Tweetbot), then sure, Calcbot makes sense.

Running a search for "tapbots" indeed gives me Tweetbot and Calcbot in the 1 and 2 slots, but the rest of the results are shit. Some competing apps, and of course "Resturant Fan Logo Quiz" in slot 4 for some reason. (It's in slot 5 for "tweetbot".)

These results are still, not very good beyond position 1. Perhaps Apple should simply start thresholding results instead of inciting on an infinite scroll of results.