How Apple's Apps Topped Rivals in the App Store It Controls

I&#x27;m not saying this isn&#x27;t a problem, but it seems pretty minor compared to the fact that:<p>1) Apple&#x27;s apps come preinstalled on every iPhone.<p>2) Apple&#x27;s apps have permission to do things that 3rd party apps cannot.<p>If I search for &quot;Web Browser&quot; on the App Store... well, <i>technically</i> I&#x27;ll get results from third parties, but every single one is just a UI skin around Apple&#x27;s own browser. That strikes me as a much larger problem.

<p><pre><code> The algorithm examines 42 different signals, they said, including an app’s relevance to a given search, its ratings, and its popularity based on downloads and user clicks. [...] If you searched for “podcast” in May 2018, you would have had to scroll through as many as 14 Apple apps before finding one made by another publisher. [...] “We make mistakes all the time,” Mr. Cue said. “We’re happy to admit when we do,” Mr. Schiller said. “This wasn’t a mistake.” </code></pre> I have to say, it stretches credulity to claim any non-faulty algorithm would put Apple&#x27;s &quot;compass&quot; app as the second result in a search for &quot;podcast&quot;<p>It&#x27;s difficult to make any sense at all of such a result.

Can I go a little off-topic and comment how really well done this webpage is? Very mobile optimized and nice the “scroll to discover” kind of behavior. Haven’t noticed how long NYT has been doing this kind of stuff but very well done.

Jobs&#x27; &quot;On Flash&quot; letter seems like aeons ago, (~10 years) but even then people were commenting on the obvious implications. It pointed to Adobe Flash apps as battery-intensive and riddled with security bugs (both correct), and proposed that native apps were the solution.<p>But it went one step further by providing the casus belli against the distribution of software outside of Apple&#x27;s walled garden. Create something Apple didn&#x27;t approve of, and you get booted. A clear break from its desktop programs, which could be freely installed from wherever.<p>Now the full picture is beginning to emerge. It was good going for app developers when Apple was largely a devices company, but as it moves into software and content creation&#x2F;delivery, its position as marketplace gatekeeper means that everyone else will have to start paying tributes (in the form of ads, which appear above organic search results) if you don&#x27;t want to end up relegated to the bottom of its search algorithm.

For anyone who isn&#x27;t old enough to remember the movie Antitrust.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=k3TwIJjyjPM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=k3TwIJjyjPM</a>

Leaving aside the obvious problems with this, it also is just a shitty user experience. A search for “podcast” should not return a compass app. For a company that is supposed to be at the pinnacle of user experience and usability, the App Store buitin search is pretty unusable.

It&#x27;s fine, it&#x27;s their App Store and they can do whatever they want IMO.<p>What&#x27;s not fine is not being able to install a third party App Store with different policies so that users can choose whatever they prefer.

I wouldn&#x27;t say I have trouble considering this issue, I know what my opinion is. The ramifications feel uncomfortable because Apple is the Goliath, it feels bizarre their behavior should need defending.<p>The idea I get hung up on is Apple doesn&#x27;t control the market, they control access to the customers companies want. And those customers made a free choice to enter apple&#x27;s ecosystem. They could get an Android, they could get none of the above. The game consoles have had an incredibly locked down marketplace. nintendo had to basically build their brand on it in the wake of atari in the 80s. Why do mobile marketplaces get such additional scrutiny? The orders of magnitude more money? The pervasiveness of mobile devices? The utility of the devices?<p>The area where I do struggle is the apple tax, they don&#x27;t pay it while everyone else has to. My reflexive feeling, is that if you can&#x27;t provide 20% value over what apple can provide, there might be intrinsic issues; your product might be a commodity. But for something like spotify, where the service exists way beyond the iOS platform, it seems wild that apple get 20% of anything that goes through its platform.

Note that the article links to a previous WSJ expose, which was posted here in the past[0] (without comments). The WSJ story has more detail, and is IMHO pretty damning when it comes to the podcast app.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=20535129" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=20535129</a>

Quick observation from the data presented in article (very well done, by the way): Beginning iOS 11, if I remember correctly, Apple finally added the ability to delete stock apps. Deleted apps could be downloaded from App Store later. Perhaps the « boost » in search rankings for the stock apps was related to that ? If the dates match, I assume they would have wanted these to be found easily and screwed up in scoring. This is assuming good faith, of course.<p>Edit: I did not remember correctly! This feature was added in iOS 10, released in September 2016.

I don&#x27;t mind that at all. What bugs me much more is the complete lack of useful search and filter options in the AppStore and the resulting nonexistent discoverability. You basically only find those apps you know exist beforehand or that pop up by happenstance (if you&#x27;re lucky). What point is there in boasting about how many million apps you have in your store when 99.99% are invisible for all practical purposes?

I appreciate Apple offering its own apps, as I don&#x27;t trust anyone else with my data.

<i>The executives said the company did not manually alter search results to benefit itself. Instead, they said, Apple apps generally rank higher than competitors because of their popularity and because their generic names are often a close match to broad search terms.</i><p>No need to if the algorithm includes to artificially normalize having some of their apps syroketing their raning value.

Does this feel like a scramble to make up for lack of innovation lately? Apple is taking away from the community that builds them up which seems like a play to make quick profits. It would be too much to hope for an open platform that was curated by some decentralized voting mechanism via community &#x2F; contributors.

the app store is such a mess. Even finding something as simple as a good running app that stores and shows your weekly mileage is a huge challenge. All the top apps are terrible or missing the crucial weekly mileage feature or aren&#x27;t free. Google search is equally terrible because they only show reviews from sites with super high &quot;domain authority&quot;, or whatever, all i know is i get the same damn site results over and over and just gets worse after 3 pages, and I can never find the reviews I&#x27;m really looking for.<p>Am I the only one having these sorts of problems over and over again? or I am i just an outlier?

Remember when the EU banned MS from shipping a <i>web browser</i> with their OS? Why is iOS allowed to do the same sorts of things?

Ok? I feel like Apple is free to promote whatever they damn please on their <i>own</i> platform. Are we seriously criticizing a company for promoting their products ahead of 3rd party products on their own platform? and I mean, how much money do you think Apple is making from someone having their compass app downloaded? Seems like an inflammatory and in-genuine story.

I just tried to replicate this; I got very different results:<p>1) Ad (for Audible)<p>2) Apple Podcasts (So far so good)<p>3) A story (?) about podcasts (still odd)<p>4) The Podcast App<p>5) DLC for The Podcast App<p>6) Himalaya: Podcast Radio Player<p>So, I&#x27;m not sure how the NY Times got that particular listing, but it&#x27;s not exactly what I&#x27;d call a smoking gun against Apple.

Is it not ironic that the NYT, of all companies, cites a different company for prioritizing its own agenda at the expense of being unbiased?<p>Not that it&#x27;s right for either case, just ironic.

Seems like one of the fixes might be to provide a way to search for one&#x27;s already installed apps without going to the app store.

Have you noticed the NYT bashing Silicon Valley more lately?<p>Someone did an article on how it’s a strategy to save their ad money. Really.

Whole Foods stacks their stores with their 365 brand products. In some cases, competitors to certain products aren&#x27;t even sold.<p>Of course, there are other grocery stores you can shop at. Just like how there are other mobile platforms you can use. (well: there&#x27;s <i>another</i> mobile platform, singular. that&#x27;s a problem).<p>I don&#x27;t understand the argument for the App Store being a monopoly. Apple can do whatever they want in their store, just like Whole Foods can sell whatever they want in theirs, or Walmart, or Target, or whoever. If an argument can be made that they&#x27;re actively trying to destroy the competition in the market of mobile platforms, then we should be much more concerned.<p>Beyond that: there&#x27;s a very unique argument that the &quot;platform&quot; (iOS) and the &quot;store&quot; (App Store) are separate entities in a capitalistic market sense. If this is the case: the onus is NOT on the App Store being more open, but rather on iOS for supporting multiple different storefronts. And, again, I think that&#x27;s not a very interesting argument unless iOS itself is being anti-competitive in the market of all mobile platforms, which doesn&#x27;t seem to be the case.

If anything it seems to have gotten better since they started doing their study. Also I suppose Apple puts their apps on top to make it easy to re-install. Imagine if you removed the Music app and then were unable to find it again...

Merits (and anti trust possibilities) of Apple doing this aside, just a shout out that it’s another anti tech article on the NYT. They have a daily piece against one of the FAANGs. It’s at the point where I could start plotting this data over time and plastering it in its own thread.<p>Just remember folks - NYT directly competes with many of the FAANGs. Its awfully convenient to do reporting questioning your directly rivals, especially when you never preface your articles mentioning the conflict of interest.

It’s a privately held platform. The apps created by Apple should be on top if they want them to be. There’s no right to equal access such as with Net Neutrality, it’s not a publicly owned or subsidized platform. The only way this could possibly be wrong is if we nationalize Apple. I’m definitely left of center economically and I have no problem with Apple placing their apps on top. It would completely align with current rules, regulations and economic expectations. At 40% market share in the US, they’re not even a monopoly, not that it would matter anyway. That’s without mentioning that on a personal level I would prefer to do business with Apple rather than giving my information to many of the third parties. They’ve earned a reputation of being trustworthy and deserving of our money.