Rumor: Apple is going to give the App Store a makeover

Apple has reportedly assembled a secret team to investigate what changes it can make to the App Store. Among other things, it would look into possibilities for developers to promote their apps in the store for a fee.

The latter is a model comparable to Google’s Play Store, in which an app is placed at the top of the search results for a fee. That way, Apple can earn more from the App Store as app makers’ marketing budgets continue to grow, Bloomberg writes.

It is rumored that about a hundred employees have been put on the project. That includes manpower from Apple’s advertising unit, iAd, which is reportedly being downsized. The team would be led by Todd Teresi, vice president of the company.

In addition to the introduction of paid search results, the way of browsing through the content needs to be improved. Since the new team has only recently started, it is not yet clear what changes are to be expected.

The App Store is an important source of revenue for Apple. The company gets about thirty percent of every app sold. The store now has about 1.5 million apps. Customers have downloaded more than 100 billion apps since the store launched. Apple made a record profit of 18.4 billion dollars in the past year, converted approximately 16.4 billion euros.