Apple is launching some minor changes to the featured sections of the iOS App Store and Mac App Store that help promote the very best apps each week. The company is slapping on Editors’ Choice label to what it considers the best app and best game of the week. The new free App of the Week series is self-explanatory — each week an app that normally has a price tag will go free.
The Editors’ Choice promotion starts with the new Facebook Camera app, which the social network just unveiled yesterday as a proper answer to the common “Why did Facebook buy Instagram again?” question that’s been floating around since the acquisition. It’s a standalone app for uploading photos to Facebook, but also includes features you can’t find in the standard all-in-one Facebook app such as bulk image uploading and photo filters. The Editors’ Choice game this week is Extreme Skater, a new $0.99 app for iPhone and the free App of the Week is Cut the Rope: Experiments.
I first noticed the Editors’ Choice App Store additions go live last night in the Mac App Store, when I was browsing through to see what all the hubbub about Coda 2 is about. The Mac App Store has its own separate Editors’ Choice selections: Cobook, a new app for managing all of your contacts everywhere and Deus Ex, a steep $50 action game.
Numerous reports lately have been voicing developers’ concerns that with such a large app marketplace nowadays, it’s becoming harder to reach success. This could be Apple’s answer to help new developers get discovered easier.