The App Store for the iPad and the iPhone has added several new featured sections, to aid in app discovery. I’m not sure exactly how new these are, but I’ve only just noticed them today – and I think they’re a very nice addition for the App Store.
The new sections include Newsstand, shown above, which showcases some of the leading newspaper, magazine, RSS reader and general news apps available for the iPad and iPhone. It’s a great section if you’re a news and reading apps junkie like I am.
There are quite a few other helpful new sections as well – hit the break for some more examples …
The new sections can be seen in the Featured area of the App Store, on the New tab – on the iPad they are currently placed between the New & Noteworthy and Staff Favorites areas, as you can see in the screenshot above. They are also displayed as Quick Links down at the bottom of the Featured area.
A couple of other notable new sections are Apps for Kids and Get Stuff Done, which prominently features the superb Things app …
There’s also an App of the Week section now – which has to be a huge win for any app that is chosen to be featured there.
I haven’t spent a lot of time yet nosing round each of the new sections, but I love the fact that they’ve been added. As far as I’m concerned anything that helps us discover good new apps is a big plus for the App Store.
I do wonder how Apple is going about selecting the content for each of these new sections. I think it would be great if they would open this up. Maybe get some of the established and respected developers involved – let them choose amongst their peers. Or users as well – create a ‘User Favorites’ section. I know that both of those might be difficult to police and ensure they weren’t gamed, but it seems well past time to open up things so that featured apps are not only picked by Apple’s own staff or on the basis of sales success.
What do you think of these new App Store sections?
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It would be great if there was a section of the app store to manage ratings and reviews of the apps I own.