In this photo illustration, a computer in a coffee shop displays onscreen the new Apple App store launched on Jan. 6, 2011 in London, England. (Photo : Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
If latest reports are to be believed, Apple has developed a secret team with a view to study the modifications in the App Store, which also comprises a latest policy to charge developer for displaying their apps more significantly.
The Cupertino-headquarter tech titan is reportedly pursuing several ideas, including paid search, a model similar to Google's wherein companies would be required to pay in order to have their apps displayed at the top of search results depending on what a customer is looking for. Such as, a game developer may pay for displaying his/ her program when a customer is searching for anything like "word puzzle," "football game," or "blackjack," Bloomberg reported.
Google has made multi-million dollars from its paid search program and Apple is of the view that adopting the same approach will help Apple to open up new avenues of making money from its App Store. Of late, the augmented budgets of specific app developers like Supercell Oy, which developed "Clash of Clans," have turned out to be productive revenue sources for several Internet firms like Twitter and Facebook.
According to reports, currently about 100 members of Apple's staff are working on the project and they also include several engineers from the company's advertising group iAd. The entire project is being led Apple vice-president Todd Teresi, who earlier headed iAd, the Verge reported.
Presently, Teresi and several former colleagues from iAd underlings engaged in the App Store project. In December 2015, Apple announced that the company's senior vice-president (marketing) Phil Schiller would be taking up additional responsibilities to include supervision of the App Store. Earlier, Eddy Cue, who heads the services division, was in charge for several years.
If the report in Bloomberg is to be believed, the new change could be led by Phil Schiller. The team has commenced working on the project very recently, and so far it is not when the company will introduce any further changes. In all possibility, the Apple is targeting its World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) in June. However, it is not certain what Apple's "secret" unit will have produce by then.
For Apple, the App Store is a crucial part of business. The success of the App Store the main reason the iPhone and iPad became so popular with consumers. It has proved that more the people download apps from the store; the more likely they are to purchase Apple products. Currently, Apple received roughly 30 percent of each app sale, which is just a reasonable segment of the $20 billion the company generated in services revenue last fiscal year.
Watch the video on "Apple's App Store problem" below:
