Originally published at: Apple Launches Unified App Store Website - TidBITS
With no fanfare, Apple has launched a new App Store website that brings together the individual platform stores for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, visionOS, watchOS, and tvOS. It’s a well-designed, responsive site that adjusts well to different screen and window sizes.
You can switch between stores, browse categories, search for apps, view each app’s full entry, and share a link via Messages and to apps with sharing extensions. You can’t copy the URL directly from the share sheet, but you can grab it from your browser’s address bar.
Searches are limited to one store at a time, but if you switch stores while viewing results, the site automatically re-runs your search for the new store. Unsurprisingly, you can’t download from the App Store website—downloading only makes sense within the context of each platform.
Links to shared apps haven’t changed, but they now open in the new App Store website when clicked in a non-Apple app on the Mac or any app on the iPhone or iPad. Clicking an app link in a Mac app from Apple, such as Safari, Mail, or Notes—or anywhere I’ve found on the iPhone or iPad—opens the app directly in the App Store app.
This behavior isn’t much different from before, when a link to an App Store app clicked in non-Apple apps would open in App Store Preview, which provided the same information but no searching or way to get to the top level of the App Store. Previously, all links on the App Store Preview page were redirected to the native App Store app.
I wonder if this App Store website is intended to expose the full App Store catalog to search engines and crawlers in ways that it wasn’t before. Apple isn’t known for wanting to cede control over anything, but perhaps there’s some new benefit to making everything visible on the public Web.