[Apple App Store API] Results are different than App Store search

[haseebyf]

Search a term on "chromecast" on iPhone and then on the demo page https://serpapi.com/playground?engine=apple_app_store&term=chromecast&country=us&lang=en-us&num=10&page=0&no_cache=true&device=mobile. The results are different.

[schaferyan]

Hi @HaseebYousaf , thanks for the issue. Could you please share a screenshot of the results you see when searching for "chromecast" on your iPhone, so that we can see how they are different? If you have a URL for that it would also be helpful.

[haseebyf]

Here is a screenshot from AppTweak for keyword "chromecast" on iPhone.

It is exactly the same as the results on my iPhone App Store. The top three results seem to be stable, as seen in this screenshot:

However, the results in the playground, I mentioned above, are different. Specifically, the order of the apps is different.

AppTweak is showing the correct results, so there might be some API from Apple that gives the result.

I tried the below API but it is also giving the wrong order of the apps. curl --location 'https://search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/search?term=chromecast' \ --header 'X-Apple-Store-Front: 143441-1,24 t:native' \ --header 'Accept-Language: en-us' \ --header 'User-Agent: AppStore/7.0 iOS/17.1 model/iPhone14,1 hwp/t8015 build/15E302 (6; dt:162)'

[schaferyan]

I see, thank you @HaseebYousaf . Can you also share the region you are performing these searches from?

I'm not sure if it will solve the issue, but the order seems to change slightly based on the value of of country.

For example, this is the search with country=us:

https://serpapi.com/playground?engine=apple_app_store&term=chromecast&country=us&lang=en-us&page=0&no_cache=true&device=mobile

And this is the search with country=do:

https://serpapi.com/playground?engine=apple_app_store&term=chromecast&country=do&lang=en-us&page=0&no_cache=true&device=mobile

[kishanios123]

I see, thank you @HaseebYousaf . Can you also share the region you are performing these searches from?

I'm not sure if it will solve the issue, but the order seems to change slightly based on the value of of country.

For example, this is the search with country=us:

https://serpapi.com/playground?engine=apple_app_store&term=chromecast&country=us&lang=en-us&page=0&no_cache=true&device=mobile

And this is the search with country=do:

https://serpapi.com/playground?engine=apple_app_store&term=chromecast&country=do&lang=en-us&page=0&no_cache=true&device=mobile

I have set the proper country (US) & Language(EN) on the playground but the results are different. many other ASO platforms provide wrong results now. Maybe major changes have been made from Apple's side.

[schaferyan]

Thank you @kishanios123

I've verified that the results for Desktop also seem to be in a different order than the App Store desktop application presents them: