Research
Explore apps
On the web
Explore apps in the Research sidebar is one table over the App Store’s charts, read every night: the top 100 free, paid and grossing, overall and by category, with this month’s downloads and revenue beside every app, how each moved against last month, thirty days of chart places as a line, the rating, and when it launched and was last updated. The row of filters above it narrows the table the way a market is actually narrowed; the set ones turn green, and exclusions sit under the row as red pills with an x. Any column head sorts. Export downloads what is on screen as a sheet.
Not captured yet
This picture is taken from the running app, not drawn by hand. Run npm run docs:shots to take it.
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| Column | What it says |
|---|---|
| App | Rank, icon, name and maker, with the store’s mark, and the marks of the platforms its company posts on once that company is on file |
| Category | Apple’s category, as a pill |
| Downloads | This month’s estimate, projected to the full month, and the change against last month’s |
| Revenue | The same for revenue. Blank for an app off the grossing chart whose price list has not been read: opening it reads the list |
| Growth 30d | How many places it climbed or fell on this chart in thirty days, over the line of its place each day. A new arrival says so |
| Rating | Stars out of five and how many people reviewed it |
| Released | How long ago it launched, and the date |
| Last update | How long since the listing was last updated, and the date |
| Filter | What it narrows |
|---|---|
| Time | Launched in the last three, six or twelve months or two years, or after the first of a year |
| Chart | Top grossing, top free or top paid |
| Category | One of Apple’s categories, or all of them |
| Exclude | Categories to leave out, as many as you like. Each one is a red pill under the row |
| Price | Free to download, or paid up front |
| In app purchases | Apps with an in-app price list, or without one |
| Min revenue / Min downloads | This month’s estimate at or above a floor: $10K to $1M a month, 10K to 1M downloads |
| Min reviews / Min rating | At least this many reviews; at least this rating |
| Growth | Climbed the chart in thirty days, climbed ten places or more, or new on the chart this month |
| Marketing signals | Only apps whose company posts on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube or X, or runs Meta ads. Read from the company on file. The top twenty-five of every chart is read nightly with its company, so those always carry signals; an app further down shows them once somebody opens it |
| Sort | Any column, either way. On the web, click the column head |
Type in the search box and two things happen at once: both stores are searched live for any app by that name, shown first under On the stores, and the chart below narrows to the rows whose name, maker or category matches. An app that has never charted is still one click from its company. Type a sentence instead (meditation apps launched this year making money) and AI reads it into the filters first, which turn green (here Category, Time and Min revenue), then the stores and the chart are searched for the words that are left; a line under the box says what it was read as, with Search the words as typed to undo it. A reading costs one AI credit, and a plain name never goes near the AI. Enter asks the stores again; Esc clears the box. Each search costs 5 research results, and a phrase already asked in the visit is answered from memory for free. A row opens the company behind the app. For the top of every chart that open is instant and costs nothing: the app, its price list, its reviews and its company were read overnight. An app further down is read live the first time and costs 20 research results. Every charted app is read each night; the first night after an app charts, the estimate rests on its chart place and its rating count, and after a week the movement of the count takes over. Google publishes no charts, so Android apps arrive through search, or as the twin of an App Store app.