You already know iPad apps are hot. Which ones? How hot? AppStoreHQ has answers…

It’s only been two weeks since Apple introduced the iPad, but there are already 3,357 “iPad ready” apps, and 2,905 apps (and counting) designed specifically for the device. Many of these apps are significantly more expensive than their iPhone cousins, raising the stakes for consumers looking for new apps to buy.

With all these new apps to choose among, shouldn’t there be an objective, independent ranking system to help iPad owners find the best apps for their new devices?

Now there is. Introducing AppStoreHQ for iPad and our Hottest iPad Apps list.

How does it work?

  • We continuously scan the leading iPhone and tech blogs worldwide to discover new iPad app reviews and mentions, providing a constantly-updated view into the most-talked-about apps among the leading voices in tech.
  • We then use two different third-party sources - Alexa and Compete - to assign a relative authority score to each source (you can view our canonical blog list and the current Compete and Alexa scores for each included blog here).
  • We apply our weighting algorithm to each discovered mention, so the more trusted and authoritative sources receive more weight than those that have not yet established an audience.
  • We also apply a time-based decay to the weighted score before calculating our rankings and injecting them into our search index.
    • Why does time matter? Because different apps have been in the App Store for different amounts of time, older apps will tend to accumulate “value” (in terms of quality mentions) when compared to newer apps. To ensure that all apps are evaluated on a level playing field, we “decay” the value of older apps and mentions to normalize the results and present an accurate snapshot of app popularity right now.

Have questions? Want to learn more? We’d love to talk about this new service with you. Please get in touch!

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