Apple’s own apps once monopolized App Store search results

The two Apple executives that spoke with the newspaper were Senior Vice Presidents Phil Schiller and Eddy Cue; the former is in charge of the App Store while the latter oversees many of Apple’s own apps. The two defended the company by denying that Apple had ever changed the search results to benefit its own apps over those offered by competitors. Instead, they said that the company’s apps generally get higher placement in search results because of their popularity and because the rather generic-sounding names of these apps more closely resemble the search terms being used by consumers.

Armed with years of data, the Times pointed out that back in September 2013, searching for “music” in the App Store would usually result in music streamer Spotify showing up first with another streaming app, Pandora, number seven. After Apple launched Apple Music in 2016, searching for “music” in the App Store came back with the company’s own streaming app on top, Spotify knocked down to fourth, and Pandora down to eighth. By February 2018, the search for “music” in the App Store resulted in a list that had six Apple titles on top (Apple Music, Garage Bands, Music Memos, iTunes Remote, Logic Remote, and iTunes Store) with Spotify eighth. And by the end of last year, eight Apple apps appeared at the top of the results list when “music” was the subject being searched for. Two of those apps (iMovie and Clips) had nothing to do with music and Spotify was down to number 23.

But this isn’t the end of the story. Shortly after Spotify complained to the EU in March, Apple had adjusted the algorithms and a search for “music” in the App Store had iTunes on top with Apple Music second. No other Apple apps were in the top 10 and Spotify was back to fourth with YouTube Music fifth, SoundCloud seventh and Pandora eighth. Meanwhile, Apple won’t admit that there ever was a problem that needed correcting. “It’s not corrected,” said Schiller. “It’s improved,” said Cue.