Does Apple Control Search Results in App Store?
This post has been inspired by the following article. The author of the article talks about the power of the search results on the App Store. Search results play a huge role in the App Store, generating around two-thirds of its more-than-$50-billion profit. However, the main issue discussed in the article is the suspicion that Apple forces its apps to stay on top of the search results, even when they are far less relevant and popular than the apps suggested by other developers. Even though Apple, just like Google or Facebook, does not disclose its algorithms (so that no one could abuse them for personal benefit), they claim that there was “…nothing underhanded about the algorithm the company had built to display search results in the store.” However, after facing legal challenges in the United States, the company had to tweak its algorithm so it wouldn’t group apps and suggestions by the maker.
This article relates closely to the material in the class. First of all, we see a huge competition for the top slots at the search results, which is related to what we’ve been studying. Moreover, we see that every company develops its own algorithms that determine which pages/apps/results are going to be on top of the suggested list, yet they have to keep it secret, so no one abuses them. Thus, those algorithms must be much more complicated than the few that we learned in class. Finally, as the article emphasizes, algorithms are written by humans who can choose what to prioritize, so blaming it all on an algorithm (like Apple did) is not always the best idea.