Apple App Store search down, leaving people unable to find apps for iPhone and iPad

Apple is understood to be aware of the problem and is working on a fix

Andrew Griffin
Thursday 05 May 2016 12:26 BST
Comments
The Apple logo seen through a fence in San Francisco, California
The Apple logo seen through a fence in San Francisco, California (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Apple's App Store search appears to be entirely broken, leaving people unable to find apps.

Searching for anything on the store usually shows an empty box where the search results should be. Occasionally, apparently arbitrary and unofficial apps show up – searching for "Tidal" brings up one result, a brightly colour game, for instance.

Apple is understood to be aware of the problem and is working on fixing it. But its official status page says that the App Store along with all other services are working well.

Though the search engine appears not to be functioning, the rest of the App Store works. That means that users can still download updates for their apps and find them through the Featured and charts tabs, for instance.

What is Apple's strategy?

The App Store's search has received significant criticism in recent months, with complaints about the fact that it seems not to separate out unofficial apps and that they can often be hard to find. The company has been said to be working on those problems as part of a push towards services that might also include ads and promoted results within the search feature.

Update: Apple has since said that the search tool has been restored.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in