Jason Snell, Six Colors:

while the App Store has indeed had an editorial team for quite a while, Apple’s approach to App Store editorial has been nearly invisible. Editors select apps to highlight and might write short bits of text for use in collections, but for the most part the job has seemed to be more about curation than words.

This is not meant to disparage curation—it’s an important job and one of the ways the App Store can highlight the hard work of app developers who are making polished, impressive products.

Damn right! Curation is a skill and highly polished curation a valuable skill.

With iOS 11, though, Apple’s really showing that it has redefined what the App Store editorial team is for. In the redesigned App Store app in iOS 11, app highlights go way beyond buttons that would present an app’s App Store page when you tapped. The new Today tab is populated with full-fledged feature articles, with screen shots, videos, animations, pull quotes, and real writing.

The change is pretty impressive. To get a sense of this, take a look at the Monument Valley 2 screenshot in Jason’s post. That’s some beautiful prose there. And well written copy helps the user get a sense of the game’s value, helps the developer by spurring sales, and helps put more coin in Apple’s bank. Win, win, win.