insights

We all know Apple paid big bucks to acquire Chomp earlier this year so it's probably a big deal and something we should understand.  In this post, I want to dive into how this acquisition affects App Store Optimization.  With iOS 6, we already have visually seen Chomp's impact.  When performing a search in the App Store, you no longer see the vertical list of apps.  Now it's horizontal with a "card" style layout, just like Chomp had in their app.  Many developers have complained that this makes browsing through the results more difficult which makes it harder for apps further right (or lower ranked) to be discovered.  This is true but it now makes the importance of App Store Optimization (ASO) even greater...so that your app is further left (or higher ranked).  However, the layout of the results is not as important as the ranking algorithm that Chomp brings to the App Store.