Wow! Congratulations on a job well done. The new iTunes is breathtaking, but more importantly the visibility of apps has increased immensely. The underbelly of the Appstore is reserved to under performing apps only. Apps now have multiple ways to be found. A great day for Developers! Good apps have a realistic chance of being purchased now and the charts are going to be more realistic and more competitive. Love everything about the "New" iTunes.
I'm still undecided. Under Racing games there is now a What's Hot area and the first games listed are three Racing Live "Prestige Points" offerings. I have doubts as to how hot all three of them could really be. Oh wow, I see Dave is "In The Spotlight" though. okay I guess I approve LOL. The layout is a bit different I must say.
Most of my stuff is no where to be found. But I did somehow manage to end up in the spotlight in the iPad Word Games section.
schplurg, The dust has to settle and the bugs have to be ironed out. We now have a fighting chance to move up and down the "multiple" lists. This was a lot of work and a lot of energy and brain power went in to this new iTunes. Devs have been very critical with the lack of exposure for their apps and Apple did something about it. The new iTunes is a great step and requirement to allow the app store to grow even more.
I agree. Apple doesn't get enough credit for how they've continually evolved their platform. The App store has come a long way. Kudos to Apple.
Cool. I just discovered it so I'll take a deeper look. The layout is cool. I know every time Apple changes something in iTunes it kind of gets done in steps, so I agree that it's probably "in process".
And...it's gone. Looks like this spotlight thing rotates pretty quickly!? Good thing I took a screenshot.
Looks kind of chaotic and random to me. I mean, 1500 featured apps? Like 150 apps in each genre's spotlight? No one wants to sort through that and I can't imagine it doing much to help exposure -- especially considering that most of the exposure comes from actually being on the featured or whats hot list on the phone itself. Congrats to Daredevil Dave, but while seeing the #1 racing app in the spotlight is cool and all, its not going to help out with middle ground apps exposure. I do like being able to see the top 200 in each category though, especially overall.
found it, but no idea how it works? Vector Rally is still featured under Hot Games, but not under Racing 'Featured'?
After looking around some more I agree that it's pretty chaotic. But maybe Apple is still sorting stuff out. On some pages you can't use the Back Button to go to the previous page. I know they redid the actual individual App Pages recently...the 5-Stars etc being below the screen shots now. Those pages were somewhat broken for a few days (couldn't sort reviews, etc)
I agree that things got pretty hectic. Every screen is now full of icons all around and your eyes can't easily pick up what is what... Needs more work to be usable...
I agree too, but that's already a nice move for developers. We just discovered we are also featured In the Spotlight under Arcade and Strategy I hope they will add a new look for the Appstore on iPhone too, like a Top 200 for example.
seems that "In the Spotlight" section that are in each category is now called "New and noteworthy" (better consistency) Anyway, it is a good move for apple as you've all said. I'm also a happy man since my first little app in now in ipad entertainment "new and noteworthy" in most country where the ipad is going out today (but not in the US store yet!) Pierre ------- toy in app store: Draw with Stars!
Has the new iTunes helped your sales figures? I have not noticed an improvement in my sales, it still is very early with the new format of iTunes. I have quite a few highlighted games that have generated no sales spike. Anyone benefit yet?
Nope. My guess is that games that were already featured are now amongst a sea of icons and aren't as "spotlit" anymore. My visibility in What's Hot also changed at that time (moved to the right and out of view without scrolling) so it's hard to measure for me personally.
It hasn't made much difference in my sales or rankings. I think most sales are driven by the app store on the device.
Indeed, based on my estimates around 80% of sales are from the device, with around 20% being from iTunes itself. Im hoping that there may be a new layout or the addition of some feature slots when OS 4.0 comes out on the actual devices...
