When Apple added the new Food & Drink and Catalog categories in the App Store, it showed that Apple was still working on App Store organization, but also highlighted how much work App Store organization still needs to be done. As the mother of a young child, I've been waiting a long, long time for one category in particular -- a Kids category.
Shopping for kid apps is incredibly difficult in the App Store right now. In fact, Google Search provides better results than the App Store itself. Occasionally, Apple will feature a temporary Kids section, like they do for special events and holidays, but it never sticks around for long, and has never been made a permanent category.
Apple markets the iPad as being a great device for children. They show off how iPads help special needs children. They're actively trying to get iPads into schools. They feature children using iPads in commercials and promo videos. They've also recently replaced iMacs with iPads at the kid's table in Apple Retail Stores, and those iPads are filled with kids apps, and nothing else.
The Education category in the App Store is filled with many apps designed for kids, but that only exacerbates the the problem. It doesn't help parents who are looking for general, not education-specific kids apps, like coloring books, games, puzzles, books, etc. And it makes it even more difficult for high school and college students to find what they need in a sections flooded with apps for young children.
The App Store needs a complete makeover. Apple bought Chomp and is making changes to the way search results are returned, but unless this fall's iPhone 5 event brings with it an entirely new, entirely improved App Store interface and discovery experience, more and better categories are one of the few short term improvements we can get.
It would be great to see Apple introduce a Kids category. In a perfect world, subcategories by age and by type would also be nice -- apps for very young children are as different from apps for pre-teens as games are from educational apps. But even a general Kids category would make it much easier for parents to find fun apps for their kids, easier for developers to get attention for their apps, and clean up the current Education category for students who are looking to learn something more difficult than their ABC's and basic arithmetic.
I'm a parent and I want to buy more apps for my child. A kids category could make that much, much easier for me and for all parents.
