14 DAY TRIAL // People keeping a close eye on the Apple App Store have confirmed that searches now correct misspellings, serving up more apps than before.
The changes went into effect weeks ago, according to people familiar with the matter cited by TechCrunch. In addition to correcting misspelled application titles, the new algorithms also take into account missing spaces.
For instance, if you search AngryBirds, the App Store will no longer fail to return a relevant answer.
The change will undoubtedly pave the way for higher numbers of app downloads, especially for those developers whose titles are hard to spell, or have lengthy titles.
“That's great news for app publishers and yet another step in Apple's efforts to improve app discoverability,” says Craig Palli, chief strategy officer at Fiksu, a mobile app marketing company.
Fiksu also confirmed these changes, and revealed back in August that Apple had started to take into account app ratings to serve up more relevant results.
Despite having a sub-par search mechanism, Apple’s App Store by far trumps every other digital distribution venue in sheer number of downloads.
Last month, the Cupertino giant quietly zoomed past the 1 million apps mark and, in a rather unusual fashion for the company, decided not to brag about it.
The only way to find out App Store numbers confirmed by Apple is via the company’s press releases announcing new iOS devices and services.
Last time we checked, Apple’s App Store offered more than one million apps to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users in 155 countries, with more than 475,000 titles being specifically geared towards tablets.
“More than 60 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store, which offers customers an incredible range of apps in 24 categories, including newspapers and magazines in Newsstand, games and entertainment, kids, education, business, news, sports, health and fitness and travel,” Apple said in October.