App Finding Tip

Sometimes, I hate the process of searching for apps -- especially if I just want to browse and I don't have a specific app in mind. I have yet to figure out how the App Store determines what has the most "relevance" to my searches because often times it feels wildly off. In addition, it can be time consuming, and I don't feel like I'm as efficient with it as I could be.

This week, I found a work around. Go to Google and begin your search with the query "site:apple.com" and then the key words you want to find in the app store. Here's a very broad search as an example:

 
This search seemed to return far more relevant results for me. Like the App Store, I was able to see prices and ratings on one screen. Maybe it's because I have more experience searching with Google, but I also felt like the browsing process was much more efficient. Although this search returned 305,000 results, I noticed that there started to be a lot of duplicates on the fourth or fifth page. I also noticed that a lot of the obscure and seemingly irrelevant hits that I would get with a similar search through the App Store were weeded out, or at least moved to much later in the results. Overall, this seemed like a much better route for casual browsing than working through the app store.