iPad-Only Apps and iPhone App Store Search

Sep 4

2 min read

You run an iPad in the lobby. You shop for the app on the iPhone in your pocket. Those are two App Store surfaces. iPad-only software can fail to show in iPhone search. The kiosk can be right and the listing can still be invisible.

This is not a rumor from a forum. Apple filters by device. If the binary does not run on iPhone, iPhone search can omit it. Practice owners do not walk into the store with a 13-inch iPad. They search on the phone.

Why lobby software gets hit

Client check-in is an iPad job. Discovery is an iPhone job. Brand search (the name) can still work. Category search (client check-in, patient check-in) is where iPad-only apps disappear. If you only get people who already know Purple Couch, that is brand search, not category.

A clone that ships iPhone plus iPad will win the phone search even if the kiosk is the same tap.

What not to do

Do not upload iPhone screenshots for an iPad-only binary. Review can reject it. Users cannot install it.
Do not rename the app to Client Check-In and hope. Name vs subtitle is a different fight.
Do not run Apple Search Ads on a listing whose screenshot 1 is a logo.

What to do instead

Keep the product iPad if that is the hardware.
Write the 30-character subtitle as the job: iPad check-in, you get a text.
Make screenshot 1 the tap-a-face screen, with a headline that reads at thumbnail size.
Put a working App Store button on the site. If web referrer is zero, the button is probably a Wix template.

Purple Couch's US listing: apps.apple.com/us/app/purple-couch/id1486305452. Site: purplecouchapp.com. Pricing: $14.99 for 1 to 5 staff.

What you will see in search instead

I'm Here is a tap-a-face check-in that has shown up in iPhone client check-in. I'm Here. TapIn is clinic-flavored patient check-in. TapIn. Open those searches on a phone this week. Write down the order. Do not argue with a screenshot from last year.

Purple Couch's constraint

The product is a lobby iPad. That will not change because search is annoying. The listing has to work twice as hard: name the job in the subtitle, show the real UI first, send the website to the live US listing.

If you are choosing hardware around search, that is backwards. Choose the stand. Then make the listing honest on the phone even if the install is iPad.

A one-hour test for any iPad-only app

On an iPhone, search the brand. Then search the job (client check-in, patient check-in).
On an iPad, repeat.
If brand works and job fails, you have a discovery leak, not a product leak.
If both fail, the listing has never been rewritten.