The previous tutorial showed you how to find the top charts iPad apps by category; in this tutorial, you will learn how to see the up and coming new apps, hot new releases, and iPad apps Apple decides to feature specifically in the App Store. This is an easy way to find real nice apps before they even get a chance to hit the top charts of top paid apps, top free apps, or top grossing apps. The featured apps are both free and paid, and range across all categories you can think of.
View the featured iPad apps and latest apps in the App Store
Follow these steps to load the latest and greatest from the App Store:
- Once with your iPad in hand, click on the Home button to view one of your Home screens; then, find the "App Store" icon and tap on it to open the store.
- Once the App Store loads in full screen, you will find five buttons displayed along the bottom edge of the display; tap on the "Featured" button.
- Your iPad will load a screen that contains three tabs at the top: "New", "What's Hot", and "Release Date".
- Under New, Apple features iPad apps that have just been released ("New and Noteworthy", at the bottom of that screen), but also a special selection of seasonal apps or short run features, like "iPad Game of the Week", "Apps for Valentine's Day" (the seasonal app category featured at the time of this writing), and "iPad App of the Week".
- Just tap on any of the thumbnails at the top of the screen, or on the icon of the app you're interested in at the bottom; also notice that the bottom section behaves like a search results page in the App Store, and includes left and right arrows that allow you to navigate through multiple screens of apps.
- When you tap on the "What's Hot" tab, you'll see up and coming apps that are rising to the top because of their popularity, especially brand new apps that have just been released.
- Finally, if you tap on the "Release Date" at the top of the screen, you will see a listing of iPad apps sorted by date, from newest to oldest (use the right arrow to go back in time). Given how popular a platform the iPad has become, you will likely see several apps that have been approved on this very day, and have made their debut in the App Store! This allows you to test "untested" apps, in the sense that the most recent ones will of course show little to no feedback through comments or ratings. Unless a brand new app is featured by Apple, it may be worth waiting to see how users react to very recent apps before taking the time to download it yourself.
Note that the App Store evolves constantly, so you may see a new tab and new section appear in the "Featured" part of the App Store - this tutorial will be updated accordingly, as hard as it is to keep up with all these changes!