Apple pushed out iOS6 to its customers earlier this month. According to Pocket, a popular service that lets you “bookmark” articles you might want to read at some point in the future, over 60% of their users have already updated to iOS 6. Chitika, an analytics company, reported similar adoption rates. Within 48 hours of iOS6 launching, they saw 25% of all iOS devices in the U.S. and Canada using the new version of the operating system. In other words, because Apple controls the software update experience, they’re able to migrate a significant portion of their customers to newer versions of their software practically overnight.
The key feature in iOS6?
It isn’t maps, despite what the brouhaha on the internet suggests, is the new App Store. Apple purchased a company called Chomp in February of this year. They were known for their ability to better curate Apple’s App Store than even Apple themselves. Chomp’s app and the algorithms behind it, that’s essentially what millions of iOS users are now interacting with when they tap the App Store icon.
With the new App Store, Apple is now putting more of a focus on searching instead of browsing. The assumption here is that people already know what they’re looking for, so they just type in the name of your app. Apptamin, a company that helps developers better market their apps, wrote a comprehensive article going through all the new features in the App Store and what you should do to get your application more recognition.
Some changes worth mentioning include the new application page, as in the homepage for your app in Apple’ App Store. Screenshots are given a more prominent role, users are better able to navigate through your version history, ratings are now easier to get to since they’re right at the top instead of buried at the bottom, and while it’s still too early to say how Facebook integration is going to help app discovery, there’s something to be said about connecting the world’s largest repository to applications to the world’s largest social network.