There’s an App (Store) for That

The App Store ① is arguably the most important app in iOS, since it’s your portal to a treasure trove of over one million apps. But with so many options, it can be difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. Thankfully, iOS 8 comes with a few new tools to help you find the best the App Store has to offer.

① The App Store is your portal to a seemingly infinite sea of apps. It launches to the Featured view, which is Apple’s showcase of hot new apps, as well as discounted apps and staff favorites.

Signing In

In some areas of the App Store, such as the Updates screen, what you see depends on the Apple ID you’ve used in Settings > iTunes & App Store.

Searching for Apps

If you know what you want, enter the app’s name in the Search field at the upper right (on the iPhone or iPod touch, if you can’t see this field, tap Search at the bottom). Or, type a keyword like keyboard or weather.

Tip: For app ideas, read Apps to Try in iOS and A Look at Apple’s Apps, both found later in this book.

Browsing for Apps

Tap a button on the bottom of the screen to try one of these views:

Featured: Featured shows an assortment of apps that Apple has chosen to highlight. To focus your browsing, tap Categories at the upper left. This screen is a good place to watch for great new apps and sales.
Top Charts: Top Charts isn’t all that useful because its lists are often full of junk apps, but it can be a quick way to track down something that’s free, and you can tap Categories to narrow your search.
Explore: New in iOS 8, Explore replaces the Near Me view and includes popular apps in your location, as well as a list of app categories.

In-App Gotchas

Because many people don’t want to pay for apps up front, many developers offer free apps with more options available as in-app purchases. Sometimes this is good, like with Overcast or Revolution 60, which you can try for free but offer in-app purchases for full functionality.

But some apps use clever psychological tricks to keep you dumping money in like a slot machine. Here are a couple of ways to check an app out before you download:

When you view an app’s description, look for an “Offers In-App Purchases” badge under the app’s name. Scroll down and tap In-App Purchases to see a full list of what’s on offer.
Check the Top Grossing chart. If an app is “free” but raking in cash, that’s often (but not always) a bad sign.

Updating Apps Automatically

You can choose whether apps update manually or automatically:

Tap Settings > iTunes & App Store.
Under Automatic Downloads, enable or disable Updates.
If your device has a data plan, you probably want to turn off the Use Cellular Data switch on this screen. That way, when you buy apps or media on a different Apple device, those items will download to this device only if is connected to a Wi-Fi network.

With automatic downloads enabled for Updates, there’s no need to check the Updates screen in the App Store—iOS automatically downloads and installs updates to apps as they become available. If you disable this option, you must update your apps manually.

New! App Store Improvements

App bundles: Developers can now bundle apps so you can purchase them together at a discount.
App previews: In addition to screenshots, developers can offer preview videos of apps.
Editors’ Choice badges: Apps that have been in the Editor’s Choice showcase are now clearly labeled in their app descriptions.
Explore: The Explore view is new.
Infinite scrolling: When searching for an app, instead of paging horizontally through each listing individually, you can scroll an endless list of app descriptions vertically.
Related searches: When you search for a vague term, you get a scrollable list of options under the search box (this has also been added to iOS 7).
Trending searches: Before you search, you see a list of currently popular searches in case you need ideas.

Updating Apps Manually

Tap the Updates icon.
You see a list of all apps with available updates.
Tap Update All or tap the Update button for any individual app—you can tap several Update buttons in rapid succession.

The update downloads. When the app is ready to be used, you can tap Open on the Updates view ② or open the app normally from the Home screen (or via any other standard method).

② The Updates view lets you manually update apps, open recently updated apps, and access your purchased apps.

Tip: Notice that the bottom of Updates view has a log of recently updated apps.

Freeing up Space

If you don’t have enough space to update your apps, you must delete some apps, documents, or media in order to make space available for the updates.

To see what’s using the most space, go to Settings > General > Usage > Manage Storage. If an app is taking up a lot of space and you wish to delete it, tap it and choose Delete App.

Finding Your Purchased List

iPhone/touch: Tap the Updates icon and then tap Purchased near the top of the screen.
iPad: Tap the Purchased icon at the bottom of the screen to see a list of apps you’ve purchased.

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