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There are two major ways people find apps - facebook/Google ads and word of mouth in personal network or on the internet. I know playstore gets a lot of visitor

There are two major ways people find apps - facebook/Google ads and word of mouth in personal network or on the internet. I know playstore gets a lot of visitors, but mostly useful just for getting top interesting apps (curation) rather than really discover a great app. You can search for some use case and more often than not find one that works. Discovery outside app store is still discovery, and by sheer numbers, if the number of apps are large, individual app discovery will be low. I don't think features you describe are needed by many. Given the traffic to search pages and two companies heavily reliant on user analytics, we would have gotten it a long time ago, if thats what people were searching for. (Factors are images, videos, and reviews that people look at, and look at its prominence on app page).

asadotzler 3y ago
You can not think what ever you want to not think but the fact is we can't know because of app store exclusivity. "Users are happy with Google search, no one wants a better search engine" would be the worst take of all time here and yet "users are happy with App Store, no one wants a better store" is accepted science. What a crock of shit. We all hate all of these services and the only thread of hope is that they will face competition enough to make them improve or be replaced. There was a time when this forum was full of hackers breaking down walls and not mega-corporation shills telling us to stop worrying and enjoy the manicured lawns.
- ankit219 3y ago
  You should relax your tone mate. It's just an opinion. I may be wrong. To state more clearly, I think app store and google search are two separate use cases. You may see it as a search, but the jtbd is different. I guess you can take a punt and build the best experience possible for an app store, but it would not make much of a difference because users don't care about it. Not that they are happy, but thats not the primary way they learn about apps. As opposed to Google, which is the primary way they learn about topics or just about anything new. Hence, power users on Google are a thing and it's mighty important I get to the right result quickly, and hence I want to try out newer search engines. For an app download, the primary driver is "others are using it so I should try it too." It's not more difficult. Users may or may not be happy with the app store (and that is disingenuous framing), but they dont visit it as often to explore as they would on Google. Which is what makes the use case different. It's about what others are using, and you only find that out via interactions with other people or top lists. Hence, Reddit and other forums, plus Facebook ads, plus the sharing aspects and network effects which enable one user to bring other users. You can build a great product search experience on App store, and likely no one would bother with it.

asadotzler 3y ago

You can not think what ever you want to not think but the fact is we can't know because of app store exclusivity. "Users are happy with Google search, no one wants a better search engine" would be the worst take of all time here and yet "users are happy with App Store, no one wants a better store" is accepted science. What a crock of shit. We all hate all of these services and the only thread of hope is that they will face competition enough to make them improve or be replaced. There was a time when this forum was full of hackers breaking down walls and not mega-corporation shills telling us to stop worrying and enjoy the manicured lawns.

ankit219 3y ago
You should relax your tone mate. It's just an opinion. I may be wrong. To state more clearly, I think app store and google search are two separate use cases. You may see it as a search, but the jtbd is different. I guess you can take a punt and build the best experience possible for an app store, but it would not make much of a difference because users don't care about it. Not that they are happy, but thats not the primary way they learn about apps. As opposed to Google, which is the primary way they learn about topics or just about anything new. Hence, power users on Google are a thing and it's mighty important I get to the right result quickly, and hence I want to try out newer search engines. For an app download, the primary driver is "others are using it so I should try it too." It's not more difficult. Users may or may not be happy with the app store (and that is disingenuous framing), but they dont visit it as often to explore as they would on Google. Which is what makes the use case different. It's about what others are using, and you only find that out via interactions with other people or top lists. Hence, Reddit and other forums, plus Facebook ads, plus the sharing aspects and network effects which enable one user to bring other users. You can build a great product search experience on App store, and likely no one would bother with it.