{"id":49879,"date":"2025-11-03T15:47:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T20:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=49879"},"modified":"2026-02-19T14:41:43","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T19:41:43","slug":"web-version-of-the-app-store","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/03\/web-version-of-the-app-store\/","title":{"rendered":"Web Version of the App Store"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2025\/11\/03\/apple-launches-app-store-for-the-web\/\">Juli Clover<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2025\/11\/03\/apple-launches-app-store-for-the-web\/\"><p>Apple launched <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/iphone\/today\">a new App Store on the web<\/a> today, allowing users to browse through and search for apps across all of its platforms.<\/p><p>[&#8230;]<\/p><p>There is a search interface for looking up a specific app, and clicking on &ldquo;View&rdquo; on any app in the store provides screenshots and information optimized for a web view. The design mirrors the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/guide\/app-store\/\">App Store<\/a> on each of Apple&rsquo;s platforms, but it has a much friendlier web interface.<\/p><p>[&#8230;]<\/p><p>Prior to now, Apple provided webpages for each app in the  App Store , but there was no central site for content discovery.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Finally. But sadly, just like in the App Store app, Apple prevents you from selecting any of the text. I don&rsquo;t understand why Apple insists on making its stores user-hostile in this way. However, unlike in the App Store app, you <em>can<\/em> find within the page using the browser&rsquo;s built-in search feature. You can also fix text selection using <a href=\"https:\/\/underpassapp.com\/StopTheMadness\/\">StopTheMadness Pro&rsquo;s<\/a> &ldquo;Protect text selection&rdquo; feature.<\/p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sixcolors.com\/post\/2025\/11\/the-app-store-now-has-a-pretty-sweet-solution-for-the-web\/\">Dan Moren<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/sixcolors.com\/post\/2025\/11\/the-app-store-now-has-a-pretty-sweet-solution-for-the-web\/\">\n<p>What you can&rsquo;t do is install or update those apps on your devices. At least some of that is because there&rsquo;s no link to your Apple account: instead, this is really just a catalog. If you&rsquo;re browsing the App Store for the device you&rsquo;re on, you can easily jump to the app you&rsquo;re looking at in the actual App Store app. In other cases, the usual &ldquo;Get&rdquo; or &ldquo;Buy&rdquo; link has been replaced with a Share button.<\/p>\n<p>As someone who&rsquo;s written about apps for years, this does get rid of one longstanding frustration where you would put a link to an app in your story, but it would force you to open the App Store app to see all the details of the program.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/11\/07\/the-negative-impact-of-mobile-first-web-design-on-desktop\/\">The Negative Impact of Mobile-First Web Design on Desktop<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2019\/08\/16\/app-store-editorial-stories-on-the-web\/\">App Store Editorial Stories on the Web<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/22\/redesigned-web-versions-of-app-stores\/\">Redesigned Web Versions of App Stores<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"web-version-of-the-app-store-update-2025-11-04\">Update (<a href=\"#web-version-of-the-app-store-update-2025-11-04\">2025-11-04<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macstories.net\/news\/apple-recreated-the-app-store-on-the-web-with-no-way-to-download-or-buy-apps\/\">John Voorhees<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macstories.net\/news\/apple-recreated-the-app-store-on-the-web-with-no-way-to-download-or-buy-apps\/\">\n<p>I really don&rsquo;t get it. At least on the Mac, there&rsquo;s a button to open an app in the Mac App Store, but the same isn&rsquo;t true on the iPhone and iPad.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Sure, you can always share an app to yourself on a device where you can buy it. But shouldn&rsquo;t the point of a web store be to allow you to make purchases when you&rsquo;re not on an Apple device or, for example, to buy a Mac app on your iPhone and have it waiting for you when you return to your Mac?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@lapcatsoftware\/115487405748371691\">Jeff Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@lapcatsoftware\/115487405748371691\">\n<p>The new apps.apple.com apparently renders my app Stop The Mac App Store obsolete, because the web page no longer automatically opens the App Store app.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/linklog\/web-app-store\/\">Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/linklog\/web-app-store\/\">\n<p>I hoped one thing this store might correct &mdash; <em>finally<\/em> &mdash; is that app links opened from Safari would no longer automatically open the App Store app. Sadly, in my testing, app links continue to behave as they previously did. That is, if you visit an app listing&rsquo;s URL directly or from within the App Store on the web, your experience will remain in the browser, but if you click on an app link from a third-party website, the App Store app will be opened.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@lapcatsoftware\/115487629579179472\">Jeff Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@lapcatsoftware\/115487629579179472\">\n<p>I can&rsquo;t open apps.apple.com in Safari on iOS 18<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>I can&rsquo;t, either. It just redirects to the App Store app.<\/p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jagsworkshop.com\/2025\/11\/web-version-apple-app-store\/\">Jason Anthony Guy<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/jagsworkshop.com\/2025\/11\/web-version-apple-app-store\/\"><p>&ldquo;User-hostile&rdquo; is exactly the right phrase&mdash;the same I used to describe this scourge in 2024 after I was <a href=\"https:\/\/jagsworkshop.com\/2024\/07\/overriding-usps-no-copy-policy\/\">prevented from copying text<\/a> from the USPS Postal Store. I shared then a method for restoring the ability to copy text for Safari users, which I&rsquo;ll share again: a custom style sheet to override the <a href=\"https:\/\/developer.mozilla.org\/en-US\/docs\/Web\/CSS\/Reference\/Properties\/user-select?ref=jagsworkshop.com\"><code>user-select<\/code><\/a> CSS property many sites use to prevent content selection[&#8230;]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@ednl\/115493477287606184\">ednl<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@ednl\/115493477287606184\"><p>Regarding the screenshots in the web app store; they are shown on the webpage in a frame of 496x310 but they&rsquo;re actually just 313x196, so they look really bad. And they aren&rsquo;t clickable to enlarge them, but the larger versions ARE there!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/04\/10\/universal-macappstore-links\/\">Universal macappstore: Links<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"web-version-of-the-app-store-update-2025-11-05\">Update (<a href=\"#web-version-of-the-app-store-update-2025-11-05\">2025-11-05<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/tidbits.com\/2025\/11\/04\/apple-launches-unified-app-store-website\/\">Adam Engst<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/tidbits.com\/2025\/11\/04\/apple-launches-unified-app-store-website\/\">\n<p>You can&rsquo;t copy the URL directly from the share sheet, but you can grab it from your browser&rsquo;s address bar.<\/p>\n<p>Searches are limited to one store at a time, but if you switch stores while viewing results, the site automatically re-runs your search for the new store.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lapcatsoftware.com\/articles\/2025\/10\/1.html\">Jeff Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/lapcatsoftware.com\/articles\/2025\/10\/1.html\">\n<p>The rumors of the demise of Stop The Mac App Store are greatly exaggerated.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"web-version-of-the-app-store-update-2025-11-06\">Update (<a href=\"#web-version-of-the-app-store-update-2025-11-06\">2025-11-06<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/webdev\/comments\/1onnzlj\/app_store_web_has_exposed_all_its_source_code\/\">rxliuli<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=45804664\">Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/webdev\/comments\/1onnzlj\/app_store_web_has_exposed_all_its_source_code\/\">\n<p>The App Store appears to have been rebuilt using Svelte, but they forgot to remove the sourcemap configuration in production, resulting in the complete exposure of the source code.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"web-version-of-the-app-store-update-2025-11-10\">Update (<a href=\"#web-version-of-the-app-store-update-2025-11-10\">2025-11-10<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@craiggrannell\/115514538347611540\">Craig Grannell<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@craiggrannell\/115514538347611540\"><p>The web version of the App Store is a major improvement in terms of search and accessibility &#x2013;&nbsp;Apple on Mac flipping to the Mac App Store caused a <em>massive<\/em> vestibular trigger that was never fixed. But why can&rsquo;t I buy and install from the web? Google Play has allowed this for years!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"web-version-of-the-app-store-update-2025-11-28\">Update (<a href=\"#web-version-of-the-app-store-update-2025-11-28\">2025-11-28<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/lapcatsoftware.com\/articles\/2025\/11\/3.html\">Jeff Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/lapcatsoftware.com\/articles\/2025\/11\/3.html\">\n<p>Curiously, the new website works only on iOS 26. In my testing, Safari on iOS 18 refuses to load any <code>apps.apple.com<\/code> pages, not even the front page. All <code>apps.apple.com<\/code> URLs are sent to the App Store app, either immediately in non-private windows or after you grant permission in private windows. If you cancel in a private window, then nothing gets loaded anywhere.<\/p>\n<p>This restriction appears to be hard-coded into Safari 18, because nothing on the server side prevents the website from loading.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>You may ask, if an App Store app URL redirects to <code>itms-appss<\/code> on iOS, why can you navigate to app pages on the <code>apps.apple.com<\/code> website? The answer is that the <code>apps.apple.com<\/code> website hijacks your link clicks!<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>The obvious workaround for <code>itms-appss<\/code> redirects with external links on iOS would be to enable Request Desktop Website for <code>apps.apple.com<\/code> in Safari Settings. Request Desktop Website uses the macOS Safari User-Agent rather than the iOS Safari User-Agent. Does this workaround actually work? Well, yes and no.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"web-version-of-the-app-store-update-2026-02-19\">Update (<a href=\"#web-version-of-the-app-store-update-2026-02-19\">2026-02-19<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@lapcatsoftware\/116063362545474278\">Jeff Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@lapcatsoftware\/116063362545474278\">\n<p>The web App Store is missing the Utilities category.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Juli Clover: Apple launched a new App Store on the web today, allowing users to browse through and search for apps across all of its platforms.[&#8230;]There is a search interface for looking up a specific app, and clicking on &ldquo;View&rdquo; on any app in the store provides screenshots and information optimized for a web view. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-11-03T20:47:25Z","apple_news_api_id":"84ef54e1-feb6-437c-8d6b-7731c513da39","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2026-02-19T19:41:48Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AhO9U4f62Q3yNa3cxxRPaOQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[91,31,2586,2741,30,39,103,1775,1310,96],"class_list":["post-49879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-appstore","tag-ios","tag-ios-18","tag-ios-26","tag-mac","tag-macappstore","tag-safari","tag-stop-the-madness","tag-universal-links","tag-web"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49879"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51023,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49879\/revisions\/51023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}