Gold Rush In App Store As Apple ‘Reportedly’ Switches Matrices
The App Store has been all shook up – no longer is Angry Birds the top Free App – that’s been replaced by Facebook despite it being between the number 10 to 20 range for the past year. Netflix has moved up from number 50 to number 24 and even Pandora has risen over 10 spots to number 13.
So what’s happening? It appears that Apple have changed their algorithm by looking not just at the number of downloads an app receives – as it did previously – but also how popular an app is in terms of reviews. This could be an attempt by Apple to reward developers for designing more robust and engaging apps. It is a system we have always used here at theappwhisperer.com and we know Apple constantly monitors our site. As far as we are concerned just because an app has had 1 million downloads it does not necessarily capture its popularity as it could be deleted by 500,000 users after 5 minutes of using it. We have always gone deeper in terms of how good an app is and it looks like Apple now are doing the same. This is all good news for the consumer of course and gives a much fairer scale of app popularity.
Also of note, Apple appears to have expanded the App Store bestseller list to include the top 300 apps, up from just the top 50.
Analytics firm Flurry was one of the first to call attention to the differences. “We’ve been noticing changes in the Top Free rankings for at least three days now,” said vice president of marketing Peter Farago. “From our point of view, Apple is absolutely considering more than just downloads, which we believe is the right direction to measure true popularity of an app.”
Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter, creator of the world’s most popular mobile photography and art website— TheAppWhisperer.com— TheAppWhisperer platform has been a pivotal cyberspace for mobile artists of all abilities to learn about, to explore, to celebrate and to share mobile artworks. Joanne’s compassion, inclusivity, and humility are hallmarks in all that she does, and is particularly evident in the platform she has built. In her words, “We all have the potential to remove ourselves from the centre of any circle and to expand a sphere of compassion outward; to include everyone interested in mobile art, ensuring every artist is within reach”, she has said. Promotion of mobile artists and the art form as a primary medium in today’s art world, has become her life’s focus. She has presented lectures bolstering mobile artists and their art from as far away as the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea to closer to her home in the UK at Focus on Imaging. Her experience as a jurist for mobile art competitions includes: Portugal, Canada, US, S Korea, UK and Italy. And her travels pioneering the breadth of mobile art includes key events in: Frankfurt, Naples, Amalfi Coast, Paris, Brazil, London. Pioneering the world’s first mobile art online gallery - TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com has extended her reach even further, shipping from London, UK to clients in the US, Europe and The Far East to a global group of collectors looking for exclusive art to hang in their homes and offices. The online gallery specialises in prints for discerning collectors of unique, previously unseen signed limited edition art. Her journey towards becoming The App Whisperer, includes (but is not limited to) working for a paparazzi photo agency for several years and as a deputy editor for a photo print magazine. Her own freelance photographic journalistic work is also widely acclaimed. She has been published extensively both within the UK and the US in national and international titles. These include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Popular Photography & Imaging, dpreview, NikonPro, Which? and more recently with the BBC as a Contributor, Columnist at Vogue Italia and Contributing Editor at LensCulture. Her professional photography has also been widely exhibited throughout Europe, including Italy, Portugal and the UK. She is currently writing several books, all related to mobile art and is always open to requests for new commissions for either writing or photography projects or a combination of both. Please contact her at: joanne@theappwhisperer.com
