Searching for mobile apps on a desktop is a real pain in the ass. Rather than the sleek and semi-intuitive App Store residing on your iPhone, you get arduous task of finding what you need on iTunes. Nobody wants to mess around with iTunes anymore.
If you know what you’re looking for, you can basically avoid the iTunes search entirely by searching on Google. It’ll add an extra step to the process by sending you to an itunes.apple.com link, but clicking the ‘View in iTunes’ button gets you where you need to go after the slight bit of inefficiency.
For discovery though, you’re stuck with iTunes — or grabbing your mobile phone.
TheAppStore.org fixes this issue. It’s essentially the same extra step you’d have in a Google search — the links open in itunes.apple.com and then prompt you to open iTunes to download the app — but unlike Google, it has the same filters as iTunes, and the ability to browse specific categories to find just what you’re looking for.
It also works for Mac apps, although the desktop Mac App Store isn’t nearly as cumbersome as using iTunes.
It’s not a perfect solution, but features like the ability to sort by price, last update, rating and category allow for a far better solution than iTunes — at least for casual perusal — if your phone isn’t handy.
via ProductHunt
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