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I don't really understand this thinking. If a long tail of mostly unremarkable apps make the good ones hard to find then that is a flaw of the ranking algorithm

I don't really understand this thinking. If a long tail of mostly unremarkable apps make the good ones hard to find then that is a flaw of the ranking algorithm. If an app is not even in the app store, how can it possibly attract user interest? What if users happen to like some quirky feature that seems unremarkable to app store reviewers? App stores need better search and filtering.

Marsymars 1y ago
> App stores need better search and filtering. I used to think this, but then I just abandoned their search and now use Kagi. (I use the !gp bang for the Play Store, no App Store bang seems to exist.) I can't imagine ever going back to native store searches now that they're full of ads.
- fauigerzigerk 1y ago
  Can Kagi filter apps by things like what permissions they require or by their monetisation model? We need more than a search engine. We should be able to query the app store database using _all_ the properties that the app store knows. On top of that we should be able to ask LLM style questions about the functionality of the app.
  - cgriswald 1y ago
    I’ve had some luck asking ChatGPT “How does AppX make money?” I’ve also asked it to find me games based on genre, style, and control constraints “without ads or with removable ads” and it does a fair job.
  - Marsymars 1y ago
    Sure, could be a neat feature, but practically, 95% of the time that I’m searching for an app I know the specific app I need already and am just searching by name. The !gp bang doesn’t search Kagi, it directs to the app with the matching name on the Play Store, but skips having to wade through ads to get there. The other 5% of the time where I’m looking for an app for a particular function, there usually don’t exist enough apps that perform that function for filtering on search results to be worthwhile.

Marsymars 1y ago

> App stores need better search and filtering. I used to think this, but then I just abandoned their search and now use Kagi. (I use the !gp bang for the Play Store, no App Store bang seems to exist.) I can't imagine ever going back to native store searches now that they're full of ads.

fauigerzigerk 1y ago
Can Kagi filter apps by things like what permissions they require or by their monetisation model? We need more than a search engine. We should be able to query the app store database using _all_ the properties that the app store knows. On top of that we should be able to ask LLM style questions about the functionality of the app.
- cgriswald 1y ago
  I’ve had some luck asking ChatGPT “How does AppX make money?” I’ve also asked it to find me games based on genre, style, and control constraints “without ads or with removable ads” and it does a fair job.
- Marsymars 1y ago
  Sure, could be a neat feature, but practically, 95% of the time that I’m searching for an app I know the specific app I need already and am just searching by name. The !gp bang doesn’t search Kagi, it directs to the app with the matching name on the Play Store, but skips having to wade through ads to get there. The other 5% of the time where I’m looking for an app for a particular function, there usually don’t exist enough apps that perform that function for filtering on search results to be worthwhile.