Displaying all results in app store search.

By Darren12, 29 January, 2015

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hello all,
I have a question about the app store, as I've become comfortable with the phone, I've wanted to explore the various apps available and purchase many of them. My concern is that when searching Voiceover does not display all search results as you would expect. To give an example, I've just done a search with the word file in the title, there are 3077 results listed, and 30 pages. I'm almost certain however that when I read all with a 2 finger flick down, or go through them individually, Voiceover is not reading 3077 results before it reaches the bottom and the featured tab etc. Is there a gesture to display additional results that I may be unaware of, or am I simply paranoid because it reads through quickly and I haven't got the speed set at an unusually high rate. I've observed this in every search though admittedly I've not counted 3077 apps. Apologies if my question is verging on the ridiculous but it does seem that VO excludes results when reading through a search.
Many thanks,
Darren.

Options

Comments

By daz on Saturday, January 24, 2015 - 21:21

hi,

am finding the same thing here actually. whether it be on my iPad or iPhone, i do a search for something and it displays or seems to display a fraction of the results.

By Darren12 on Saturday, January 24, 2015 - 21:21

At first I thought I was possibly going mad, it does seem to display only a small fraction of the results listed when using Voiceover. Perhaps it reports the number of relevant apps incorrectly, but I don't think so, given the amount of apps available. It's very strange. Unfortunately I have no way of comparing results with Voiceover turned off. In addition, the number of pages listed seems to be completely arbitrary and it has this very irritating habit of dropping you at the bottom or in the middle of a list of results once you've initiated a search, which I've never really understood either. Thanks for your reply.

By Usman on Saturday, January 24, 2015 - 21:21

Have you tried navigating by pages with a three finger swipe left and right? I know that this was suppose to be a feature where apple tries to determine which app you are looking for, and will display them by relevance and there isn't much you could do about it. Now that I think about it, I believe this might have been brought up in the list of bugs for IOS 8 but cannot remember.

By David Goodwin on Saturday, January 24, 2015 - 21:21

Here’s the trick for revealing more of the search results - when VoiceOver focus is on the last app currently listed in the search results, do a 1-finger double-tap and hold. Now, drag your finger up the screen for 1-2cm and lift it.

This should reveal and give you access to the next batch of search results. Touch the screen, and VoiceOver focus should be placed on the app that was previously at the bottom of the list. Flicking right should move you through the apps which have now been added to the bottom of the list.

Simply repeat this each time that you get to the end of the list.

By Darren12 on Saturday, January 24, 2015 - 21:21

Moving from page to page seems to merely display the same number of results without actually going forwards or backwards properly. I.e, it will put focus on the next app in the list instead of showing an entirely new list of apps as you would expect from a list of Google search results for example. If this is in fact a bug, It's a pretty significant one, and ultimately poor implementation as developers are being deprived of potential Revenue. I understand the point about Apple wanting to show you the most relevant results, but you should always be able to see all visible results if you need to. Many thanks for your helpful reply.

By J.P. on Saturday, January 24, 2015 - 21:21

The gesture David posted does indeed activate the additional pages to scroll.

By Darren12 on Saturday, January 24, 2015 - 21:21

That's fantastic David, it works as you described, very grateful for you sharing the tip. This site and the contributions of people are sensational, double tapping and holding then moving my finger upwards, didn't enter my mind. Also rather pleased this is not a bug, or at least there's a simple way around the behavior.

By David Goodwin on Saturday, January 24, 2015 - 21:21

Just in case there are people who aren’t aware, you can also use the gesture described above to reveal more apps in the Top Charts area of the App Store.