Changes to AppStore in iTunes 9

Apple launched iTunes 9 today. The first thing I did was to hunt for changes in AppStore. Here are the ones I found and my take on these changes.

First, The AppStore menu moved to the top. This is a very welcome move and can get more exposure to AppStore. Its good to see AppStore becoming a main category.

Where are Categories in AppStore?

When you go to AppStore, first thing you’ll miss is the list of categories. Importance was given to ‘New & Noteworthy’, ‘What’s Hot’ & ‘Staff Favorites’ sections. Between each of these sections there are some apps highlighted. I am not sure why. But Apple could have used this space to list the categories. Instead, Apple chose to move the Categories section to the top. You’ll have to move your mouse on to AppStore to view the drop down icon and then go to the category. This is not a great move. Ideally, the categories should be listed in AppStore home page. Currently AppStore home page looks like a dump of images.

The current design is great if an app is in Top 100 or if your apps i featured. If it you are not in there, I think it is tough to find an app in individual categories. Will have to compare the app sales to see what kind of impact this has.

Top 200 under ‘Top Paid Apps’

Apple now shows the top 200 apps in a category. This is great as most of the users purchase apps from the Top paid apps lists. But I think Apple tried to crunch all the apps in a single page and the page looks very very congested. I doubt if many apps will actually stand out in the clutter. I’d have ideally liked some clutter free space on the top paid software screen. It is tough for any app to really stand out.

There were no changes to the individual apps pages.

AppStore Genius

This is undoubtedly a great addition to AppStore. Apple now recommends apps based on your other apps. Sometimes it also includes apps you already purchased, but deleted on you phone. This is a great way to tempt users to purchase other apps from AppStore.

Apart from these, there are other minor changes to the AppStore. I’ll add them to this post as I discover them.

New Flight Tracking App for iPhone: Flights Pro

Our latest application has just been approved by – Flights Pro. It is now available on AppStore.

Flights pro lets you track the status of all flights worldwide. It integrates with TripIt to automatically download all your flight information. Apart from flight status information, the application also displays weather info, arrival & departure delays and contact information of airlines. Weather and Delay info is currently available for US airports only.

The application displays flight status information, delays, cancellations etc. It also displays terminal & gate information wherever available. The application gathers the data from FlightStats, a very reliable source for flight status related information. Maps of the application is powered by FlightView. Maps are displayed for worldwide flights. Status information of all flights is available for 2 days in advance.

We launched our Flights application focused on US only flights. Our Flights Pro app covers all flights worldwide including worldwide maps.  While this app uses the same design as our Flights app, the back end engine is completely different. It uses FlightStats for data and FlightView for maps, similar to our Flight Status app.

The app comes at a great price introductory price of $.2.99. Do grab our application while the deal exist.

We hope you’ll like this app. If so, drop us a review in AppStore.

Travel Guide in AppStore

Did you notice the new ‘Travel Guide’ option in AppStore? Apple seem to be adding/rotating that section often and this time (finally!) it is travel categories turn.

I like two things in this new ‘Travel Guide’ section.

First, Apple combines all content in iTunes in a single section. You’ll notice that this section not just includes apps from AppStore, but it also includes travel related podcasts, audio books, music, movies etc.  Hidden in these multiple sections is a good sign where Apple finally listed sections for ‘Translation’, ‘Learning’ etc. This is a good sign as Apple sees the need to separate these translation and learning apps from other categories as I noted earlier, these types of apps fill the AppStore.

Second, I am glad to see one of our app – Currency Exchange – listed in there. Our own currency converter application has been one of our successful apps and we are glad it is starting to get some attention from Apple. Our recent update has been received well and we are working on a new update which I think is going to make this app even better.

Next Flight in PC Mag

Our Next Flight app is listed in PC Mag among many other travel apps. Complete article here.

Next Flight ($2.99, www.touchmeme.com): Should you get bumped from a flight and need to find another one, this app is for you. It provides access to all the flights from all airlines and shows the next flight out to your destination.

Trips for iPhone launches with TripIt integration

We are very excited to announce the availability of 2.0 version of our Trips App.

This is a complete revamp of our Trips application. We built this version from scratch and added some real cool features along with a great new user interface.

This version integrates TripIt, an online travel itinerary and trip planner which helps you organize your trip. To add a trip to the Trips application, you can enter the details on the phone, on TripIt or simply forward your confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com and TripIt will automatically parse content from a wide range of vendors and prepare the itinerary automatically for you.

The app has many few features. The flights section now includes maps for En Route flights flying from/to US. We also included three new categories for Cruise, Train and Car. This makes it 9 categories in total and in fact, we download information from TripIt in all these nine categories.

We fixed several issues in the app. We also added many small features you requested.

While this update took much longer than expected, we certainly hope it is worth it. We can’t wait to hear your feedback.

One year into AppStore…

AppStore celebrated its first birthday very recently and what a ride it has been for Apple, iPhone, Developers, the ecosystem and the complete industry. The past year has been a great progress in mobile computing and AppStore obviously proved to be extremely successful with over 56,000 Applications and 1.5 Billion AppStore downloads. Congrats to Apple for changing the mobile market forever.

With over 56,000 applications and growing at ever faster pace, how will AppStore look a year from now is hard to imagine. My guess is, AppStore will become more diluted and a messy place with countless number of apps – unless Apple makes some changes in the way they approve apps and comes up with a better way of listing apps.

When I say AppStore will be filled with unlimited number of apps, I almost mean it. To give you an example, let us look at the ‘Travel’ category in AppStore. There are 172 pages of Apps with each page holding 20 apps. That is basically 3440 Apps in travel category. Now, if an app has to make it to the top 100 in that category, it probably needs to sell less than 10 units a day. So imagine how many units the other 3300+ apps selling. But that is not the point. The point is the kind of applications that are making their way onto the AppStore in this category. If you notice, a majority of apps in this category are info about cities. This means, there is an app for almost every city. I mean, an app for EVERY CITY. So where will this end? Imagine the state of the AppStore when every city has an App and the difficulty end users will face to find other apps among this App Jungle.

This is a good problem to have for Apple. But this has to be addressed by Apple soon. The focus for AppStore now has to be on Quality and not Quantity. Its time for the next major update, Apple.

Next Flight: #1 among National Geographic’s Top 20 Travel Apps

When a brand like National Geographic creates a list of Top 20 Travel Apps and when our app is listed in there, it is encouraging. When our app is listed as #1 App in the list, is is AWESOME. This is what happened recently when National Geographic launched the list of Top 20 Travel apps

We are very glad to see our Next Flight application listed as #1 app on their list. This is what they say…

Got bumped? Leaving early? Next Flight tracks scheduled departures from more than 4,200 airports and 1,100 airlines. It sounds overwhelming, but you can filter by carrier. $2.99

Thank you NatGeo.

Video: Currency Exchange & Flight Status Review

Not very often someone does a good review of your apps. Here is a video that reviews two of our Apps – Currency Exchange & Flight Status. While it doesn’t cover all the features of the app, it certainly gives you an idea of the overall functionality of the app.

Email your Flight Status

Our latest version (4.7) of Flight Status was recently approved by Apple. We added an option to email your Flight Status. In the Flight Status screen, t the bottom right, you’ll see an email icon which opens up the Compose window in email application. The compose window will be pre-populated with the complete flight status Departure and Arrival information.

Before you get on to the flight, just email the status to your friends so they know what time you’ll get in. We hope you’ll like this new feature. Would you like to see more? Drop us a line…

Flight Status Update adds Airline Information

In the previous version of our Flight Status application, we included additional information about Airports including zoom-able maps. We now raise the bar again with a new update including additional information about Airlines this time.

With this update Flight Status includes information of three key aspects of air travel – Flights, Airports & Airlines.

So, what does this update contain? Well, it includes more information about the Airlines like Airline Contact numbers, website, mobile website, Rewards Information and even links to Wikipedia articles of Airlines. All this information is displayed whenever available. The information is included for worldwide airlines.

We hope you’ll like this update. Please keep your feedback coming and let us know how we can improve the application further.