Apple ‘improved’ App Store search after its own apps unfairly dominated results

guest · Sep 9, 2019

Apple ‘improved’ App Store search after its own apps unfairly dominated results
Putting third-party apps at a disadvantage ‘wasn’t a mistake’
September 9, 2019
https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/9/2...e-search-results-iphone-ipad-unfair-advantage

Apple’s iOS App Store heavily favored the company’s iPhone and iPad apps and ranked them higher than more popular third-party options until a recent algorithm change, according to a new report from The New York Times.
The Wall Street Journal conducted a similar review of historical App Store results in July and also concluded that Apple’s apps had a clear and significant edge.

Apple told the Times that the App Store was actually working as designed in these instances. “There’s nothing about the way we run search in the App Store that’s designed or intended to drive Apple’s downloads of our own apps,” Phil Schiller, the Apple vice president who oversees the App Store, said in an interview on the subject.
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The algorithm was updated in July, a few months after Spotify filed a formal complaint about Apple’s tactics, and search results quickly looked more sensible and balanced afterward. As the company faces an antitrust inquiry from the EU, Apple’s executives were careful to avoid admitting any wrongdoing or harmful mistakes.

“It’s not corrected,” Schiller said of the algorithm. “It’s improved,” added Eddy Cue, who ran the App Store before Schiller took over those duties.
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Apple ‘improved’ App Store search after its own apps unfairly dominated results

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