Apple admits why its own Files app was ranked first when users searched for competitor Dropbox
0Reported today on The Verge
For the full article visit: https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/11/22528701/apple-rank-own-app-over-competitor-files-dropbox-wwdc-2017
Reported today in The Verge.
Apple admits why its own Files app was ranked first when users searched for competitor Dropbox
In 2019, facing down extensive investigations by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times that showed Apple's App Store clearly and consistently ranking its own apps ahead of competitors, Apple claimed it had done nothing wrong - a secret algorithm containing 42 different variables was working as intended, top executives told the Times, insisting that Apple doesn't manually alter search results.
Why do I bring this up? An intriguing email chain has surfaced during the Epic v. Apple trial where it sure looks like Apple did the exact opposite - seemingly admitting it manually boosted the ranking of its own Files app ahead of the competition for 11 entire months.
"We are removing the manual boost and the search results should be more relevant now," wrote Apple app search lead Debankur Naskar, after the company was confronted by Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney over Apple's Files app showing up first when searching for Dropbox. "Dropbox wasn't even visible on the first page [of search results]," Sweeney wrote. You can read the whole email chain embedded a little ways below.
As you'll see, Naskar suggested that Files had been intentionally boosted for that exact search result during the "last WWDC." That would have been WWDC 2017, nearly a year earlier, when the Files apps first debuted.
The email chain actually reflects fairly well on Apple overall. Apple's Matt Fischer (VP of the App Store) clearly objects to the idea at first. "[W]ho green lit putting the Files app above Dropbox in organic search results? I didn't know we did that, and I don't think we should," he says. But he does end the conversation with "In the future, I want any similar reque