[tharris0101]

Sort of off-topic and I've harped on this before, but when I search "google maps" in the app store, it's the fifth search result!

As a developer in the App Store, I really hope they do something to fix the abysmal searches in it.

[wes-exp]

Agreed! This happens with my own app as well! Apparently the app title, even when an exact match to your search query, is no longer considered important.

If there is one thing Apple truly fails at, it is search.

[wahsd]

...don't forget maps. They failed at that too. But I can tell you that it was not necessarily Apple that failed at maps. The same problems I had with Apple maps were there in Magellan GPS and their map and content provider Navteq....which is Apple Maps' map, nav, and data provider.

Ever notice when you were doing the turn-by-turn directions that there is a lag in the marker that leads you to miss or almost miss turns, especially in complex intersections....that lag was a huge issue 8 years ago, as it is today. In all that time, Navteq did very little, it seems, to improve routing, maps, or navigation. I was just using Apple Maps yesterday (I'm a very patient and open minded person that gives several unbiased opportunities) when I was told to go around this very short road segment. Turns out it was probably because the segment it marked as "No Thru Trucks". Those Navteq annoyances are what made Magellan GPS horrible and after who knows how long of doing nothing to improve them, Navteq has brought Apple to its knees.

[eco]

The Android Market had this same problem in the early days. It was frustrating but pretty amusing how terrible Google, of all companies, was at getting search right in their app store.

[Terretta]

I believe that was a deliberate tweak in response to the throngs of spam apps titling themselves by the key search terms of popular apps -- and the throngs of users complaining when they idiotically bought one of the spam apps instead of the real app.

[nikcub]

If only they partnered with a company that was really good at search and maps and could fill in the parts that Apple isn't good at ..

[BryantD]

And Apple could monopolize the areas that company wasn't good at yet, like smartphone OSes!

[walru]

As a developer I couldn't agree more.. the App Store is currently an unmitigated mess.

[pkamb]

The best is the Keywords field that cannot be longer than "100 bytes", doesn't validate your character count until you submit the from, is unclear about comma/space separated values, and disregards pluralization.

[ivankirigin]

It isn't off topic to point out that Apple isn't as good at search as Google. Relevant to both maps and app stores.

[hiddenstage]

Maybe Google will come to the rescue.

[darrenkopp]

Their search on the Google Play store isn't that great, though they now have a feature where what they auto-suggest when typing your query is usually what you want (for larger apps like netflix, ebay, etc)

[dkokelley]

My best results for search appear when the App Store auto suggests terms that others have entered. So "docs to..." suggests "Documents to Go(r) by DataViz" or something of the sort. I think that Apple could learn a thing or two from Google's search-intent capabilities.

[ibrahima]

I remember when Android's market had a similarly terrible search for years, which I thought was funnier considering it was Google and all (although I think their usual algorithms don't work nearly as well for apps that don't really have natural links).

[seanp2k2]

I noticed this too and was annoyed by it.

[coob]

I think this happens due to the way the App Store time-weights many metrics. expect it to be top tomorrow.

[neilc]

That makes sense, but it makes for pretty terrible UX for major app launches like this one.