Hi, everybody. My name is Pedraum Pardehpoosh. I run Product for the App Store. Thanks for joining us today. We've brought a few people together that normally don't get out of the office. So this is going to be a session that might be a little different than what you're used to here. It's a deeper look into the App Store.

And I'm thrilled that you joined us. You heard about the App Store from Phil on Monday at the keynote. And the staggering numbers that demonstrate what a smash hit it's been. But today we're going to spend a little time giving you an overview of the App Store. Go a little deeper.

We'll look at the design philosophy that went into the "why" we did it. And we'll go a little deeper into our emphasis on editorial. Finally, we'll bring it all back and talk about the implications to you, the developers that bring it to life. Let's get started. Who remembers this?

It's the original App Store, the OG. It had been launched in July of 2008 with 500 apps. And this is a little inside story. There were some prominent executives at the company that didn't think we'd have more than a thousand apps in the App Store ever. The structure and the layout of the store have largely remained the same. We changed things here and there, but overall it's the same store. Tweaks have been made. Well, nine years later there are 2.2 million apps in the store. And it's transformed the way software is bought and distributed.

It's hard to imagine a time before Apps. It's permeated every facet of our lives from the way we travel to the way we find love.

And they've affected entire industries as well. From airline travel to healthcare to gaming. As well as the way we play games. You saw this scene of people in Hong Kong playing Pokemon Go on Monday. And I think it's just bonkers. I love it. Well at this point in the history of the App Store, we pause to consider how we can make it even better. How we could redesign it from the ground up. And as we began doing that, we realized it could serve a few purposes.

One, we thought how can we give customers a reason to come back every day? Make it a destination they'd want to visit on a daily basis? Second, we thought this was a perfect time to double down on the editorial curation that's distinguished the App Store since its inception.

And finally, we wanted to reflect the significance the games play in the App Store and give both games and apps a clearer focus. At this stage, we began an intense journey of redesigning the store from the ground up. To tell you more about the process, I'm thrilled to hand it over to Monika Gromek who led these design efforts. Monika.

Thanks Pedraum, for letting me out of the office once in a while. And thank you all for coming to this session. My name is Monika Gromek and I lead the App Store design team at Apple. This redesign of the App Store is so significant that we felt it deserved a session dedicated just to this one topic. And hopefully by the end of it you'll be much more familiar with the changes that we're making and all the new features that we're introducing. I am going to cover the major parts of the redesign. But I would like start with our goals and the design process.

As Pedraum mentioned, the App Store launched nine years ago. And it's so hard to believe that so much time has passed. And we are incredibly proud of what it has become. And mostly, thanks to all of you and the amazing apps and games that you create every day. So why the redesign? Well, it was time for us to take a long, hard look at the current store and acknowledge its limitations, as none of us could have predicted its tremendous growth.

So just like every other app and game creator on the App Store, we asked ourselves two questions: What are our goals now? And how does the current design support them? For the new store, we touched every single view and thought hard about the structure of the app. Believe me, there were a lot of options on the table. We applied lessons from other redesigns at Apple, but the final design is unique to the App Store.

The end result is a new sense of clarity, a general simplification of the app, and a fresh take on editorial. The new style of typography helps establish hierarchy on the pages and a sense of space. It guides people throughout their journey. We've also removed extra layers of UIs such as toggles to help with the overall experience in the App Store.

Let's take a look at our redesign goals. As you can see, these are exactly the same as the ones you heard a few minutes ago. This alignment of goals helped us create a product that's integrated, fluid and also beautiful. We did add one goal from the design side.

And that is clarity and simplification. And it's probably the most important goal. And I will expand on it later. I want to start by talking about the App Store as a daily destination and the editorial voice on the App Store, as the two goals are very closely related. To do that, I want to bring up the Today view. You saw it in the Monday keynote. But let's take a closer look.

It all starts with the Today tab. This is our new home for the App Store. This is where we can share our passion for apps and games and celebrate all of you, the creators. This is where you can come and learn our editorial perspective on the world of apps and games. This view is a dynamic, ever-changing platform that allows us to feature your products in a very different light than ever before.

We designed it as a series of cards that update daily and allow us to celebrate your apps and games by telling stories. We've had this desire to tell stories for a long time now but haven't been able to do it in a meaningful and engaging way. But this is all changing now with the Today tab.

What you see here is our video card. We can highlight your app and game previews and our editorially-created videos. We will be providing helpful tips and tricks as seen in this example for VSCO. And we will be nominating an App of the Day and a Game of the Day.

And we will also be sharing our curated collections. Some of you might be familiar with our collections, as we've been creating them for years, but haven't had a way to highlight them in a predictable way in our UI. But again, this is different now with the Today tab and these cards.

We spent a lot of time thinking about how to best showcase your apps and games in this view. It was important to us that it looked beautiful, so we spent a lot of time thinking about every single detail. Everything kept us up at night for months, be it typography, layout, transitions and animations.

Each card is an entry point for a deeper discovery. And we also hope to give you some context into why you should tap in and check out that story. At any given point we will give you up to seven days' worth of content. So if you miss a day or two, you can come back and find it later. Just look for the date markers.

We also included animations on some of these cards to make them come to life. You've already seen the auto-playing video. But we hope to bring more movement into this view. Twelve cards will be ready for launch. We needed a variety to keep things interesting. But also to be able to tell diverse type of stories. And each one of these cards allows us to tell a story in a different way.

It was also important that these cards look good together and work as a system. The order in which they appear might be different, so what you see one day might be very different from what you will see tomorrow, for example. But, there's a lot of thought that goes into creating these every single day around the world. We haven't done this before. And believe me, it keeps things interesting, even at Apple.

I do want to share one other thing about the cards, which is personally important to me. That this view is relevant world wide. So all this content will be localized and culturally aware in all our territories. Let's take a closer look at one of these stories. It focuses on the fact that behind every app there is a story of who made it, what motivated them, and how it was made. It celebrates you and your apps and games. Let's dive in.

The transition into this story is smooth and fluid. And it's also easy to go back out to the Today view. Simply tap on the X button or swipe down on the article. The stories are engaging and informative. Smokey, who leads our editorial team, will come on stage in a bit and talk to you about it in more detail. But I want to highlight a few elements of these stories from the design perspective.

We're letting the elements of the stories define the space, allowing them to breathe and convey our perspective. The videos let us engage with the viewer like we've never been able to do before. And each story is a series of modules defined by our design and editorial teams. We also hope that you will share these stories with one another and enjoy them as much as we do. The modules allow for flexibility in terms of how these stories are built. But they also keep things consistent from the design side.

So we have this common language that ties them all together, making it easier for people to experience that content. It's also worth mentioning that for the first time ever this editorial content will be searchable. We've actually never had that in the App Store. And we are incredibly excited about this.

Absolutely. So if you miss a day, or if you miss some of this content, be it in the Today tab or any other place in the App Store, you can simply search for it later. It will be featured on the product page as well for that app or game.

And of course, the Today tab will be part of this App Store on the iPad. And that is the Today view. We're incredibly excited about how it looks and how it works. But more importantly, about the type of stories it will allow us to tell you every single day.

Let's talk about games next. Games have been always a huge part of the App Store. But up to this point always mixed with apps throughout our editorial and charts. Because of their importance and success, we're dedicating a home just for games in the App Store. And that is the new Games tab.

It is more than a tab. We're striving to create the best, world's best game store. Full of amazing content that people are going to love. The top of the page allows for space for more stories to be dedicated just to games or new releases. And with more focus on videos, people will be able to discover games much more quickly and engage with them almost immediately.

The split between apps and games also allowed us to make charts much more relevant in the App Store. So, the charts that you're seeing are specifically dedicated to games. And the same is true for apps. They will not be mixed in. We think this will actually make it a lot easier to find what's popular on the App Store.

The same is true of categories. As some of you may know, games was just one of the categories in the previous store. Unfortunately, what it meant is that all the subcategories were harder to find and all that content was hidden. But creating a tab dedicated for games, we can take all those categories and put them on the top level, making browsing by categories a lot easier and that content a lot easier to find.

Throughout the App Store will also be providing more context for any particular app or game. The App Store is no longer just app icons. We want to help people find what they're looking for and make the right download choices. The context can come from your subtitles that you will be providing for your apps. And these subtitles are as important as your app names today. And again, it's to provide people with more information about your app and game. The context can also come from the editorial team. And you will see more and more of it throughout the App Store.

And that is the new Games tab. We're incredibly excited about having a dedicated home for games. Before we move on, I just wanted to highlight a small but playful detail about the Games tab. Icon. The shape of the rocket is actually based on the leaf from the Apple logo. We thought some of you might find it interesting. In addition to the Games tab, we're also creating a new home for apps.

All the amazing content that you saw for the Games tab will also be available in the Apps tab. From the design perspective there was always this tension between apps and games. And we felt it was a problem we needed to solve, as apps are incredibly important and have a huge impact on how we live our lives. By splitting games and apps we can give both of them the attention they deserve.

And finding new apps will be so much easier with App Previews, as you see in this example for Mammals. What you will see in both tabs are in-app purchases. Up to this point they had a very limited presence in the App Store. But we're changing it completely with this redesign. They will be much more accessible and discoverable throughout the App Store.

You will see them on the Today tab. We actually designed a card specifically for in-app purchases. They will be highlighted on the Apps and Games tab. And they will be searchable. They will also be featured by you on your product pages. It is a complete story. What's probably even more important, how easy it is to get the in-app purchases, especially if you have the app installed on your own device. I'm going to start with the Today tab and the card specifically designed for the in-app purchases. I'm going to tap on the Buy button. The app will open. And the purchase sheet will come up. I can confirm with Touch ID and I'm done. It's simple and direct.

When designing the visual treatment for in-app purchases, it was important to us that these wouldn't be confused for being app icons. We started with the image that you will be providing for featuring your in-app purchases. And we added a framing system that helps convey what these truly are, in addition to an app or a game.

And the [inaudible] helps communicate that as well. The curve of the frame actually follows the shape of the app icons on the App Store today. And the way we think of in-app purchases is that they are the smaller part of the larger piece, which is the app itself.

It was also still important to us to keep that connection between the in-app purchase and the parent app. So we added the app icon in the lower left corner, again for more context. If you would like to feature your in-app purchases on a store, you will need to submit an image for every single one of your in-app purchases. It needs to be a custom design asset that helps describe what your in-app purchase is about. It should not be a screen shot from your app or an app icon.

The last goal, clarity and simplification, is also the most important, like I mentioned earlier, from the design perspective. It also had the biggest influence on the entire redesign. When designing our products, we constantly ask ourselves: Is this simple enough? Is this clear to everyone? And can we achieve the same goal with less? The most significant area of the App Store that probably demonstrates how this goal affected our process is the Product page. This is also home for your apps. So I want to spend a little more time on it.

Over the years, we've added a lot of different features to this page without having the opportunity to take a step back and look at it holistically. We knew we had to simplify, especially the top of the page, as this is what your customers see first. And all of the relevant information had to be clearly communicated.

We wanted to highlight this app's achievement on the App Store. So its star rating, Editor's Choice and charting position, if available. We included age rating to this section, as we know it's incredibly important, especially for those of us who are parents. All this information had to be quickly scannable and easy to understand.

Videos and screenshots are still the heroes of this page, just like they are today. But now with auto-playing video, this page comes to life. You will also get up to three videos versus just one. And we know that people want to engage with beautiful app previews. And we will feature them much more heavily throughout our UI. We redesigned how we communicate if this app is universal. This is also how you see screen shots from the other devices. We enjoy apps that have been designed and work on all the different devices.

We drastically simplified how we present ratings and reviews. They're much easier to read, and their presentation has -- their graphic presentation has been refined. We've removed the All versions versus Current version split between ratings. So updating your apps will no longer hide your ratings the way it does today.

The reviews are really easy to navigate. Simply swipe to the left or tap on the CL link. And we included the Editor's Choice in this section as well. So all the reviews are in one place. The information section underwent a makeover as well. So it's a lot easier to read.

And we are featuring more apps and games by this developer on this page or any other products that are related and you might like. Lastly, it was important to us to make it easy for you as you scroll down the page to download the app. We love the bar that comes down as you absorb the content. The transition is smooth and the bar is integrated with the overall page design.

And that is the redesigned App Store. We worked hard to make the new store a place people will love and will want to come to every day. And we hope you agree. Next, I want to invite Smokey Fontaine to talk to you about our editorial strategy for the new App Store. Thank you all for your attention.

Thank you, Monika. Thank you, Monika, so much for showing us that beautiful, beautiful redesign. My name is Smokey Fontaine. And yes, that is my real name. In many ways I'm glad they don't let me touch the product. I only get to touch the editorial. I am the editorial director here of the App Store.

It is my great pleasure to really talk to us about what does "editorial" mean for the App Store? How does original content, how will it bring our customers to the store in new and exciting ways? And how can our added perspective really transform the store from the phenomenal service and utility it has always been to a place where our users and our customers can come back and read, watch, and listen, and discover more than they ever, ever have before.

Here's what we're going to cover. Our editorial principles. We have the set of new tabs, as you've seen today, games and apps. More options for you. And we'll end with the big question. Let's start with who we are. Who is the Editorial Team? Well, first and foremost, we are fans.

We are fans of all of the work that you do. We really, really love this stuff. In fact, I'm standing here right now without my phone. And I'm feeling a little lonely. How many folks have actually used an app since this presentation has been on? Anyone? How many people have played a game since this presentation has been on? Anyone? Well, maybe you're even making, you're finishing your apps and polishing up your games as we speak. And that's what we love to do as well.

In fact, all of our App Store editors around the world wake up really excited to try to find that innovative new app that could change someone's life. Or that exciting game that customers will spend hours and hours and hours playing. We care deeply about all the recommendations we make. And it is true. We play every game we recommend.

And we use every app that we recommend. The redesign is so exciting for us because now we have the ability to provide even more context, even more perspective, and in many ways a narrative to our recommendations. So customers can come and find everything they want and need and love. Find all of the work that you create. We have a set of editorial principles.

And if you come to our story rooms around the world, and this is not just in Cupertino, but this is in London and Tokyo. This is in Seoul. This is even in Dubai. These editorial principles really guide the writing that we will write. They will guide our creative process. We start with the first one. We celebrate apps. This for us is really our most important point.

Now that we have a bigger editorial platform, it does not mean that we're going to all of a sudden start reviewing apps. It does not mean that we're going to all of a sudden going to start criticizing apps. We are cheer leaders. Unapologetic cheerleaders of apps and app culture. For us, it's really the most creative work in the world. And that is our number one principle. We celebrate apps.

Second is that we are the voice of the App Store. You know, during this redesign we thought long and hard about not only what we're going to write, but how we're going to write it. It's a big responsibility to be that voice. It's a big responsibility to kind of be the mouthpiece to hundreds and hundreds of millions of customers. And for that we want to kind of be authentic to who we are. We want it to be smart and fun.

We want it to be humble, for sure. And very friendly. Hopefully, a lot of our work will be in a kind of conversational tone. And of course, we want to be passionate about all the stuff. We are going to be very Apple. We're going to obsess over every word, every word, every word, so that our customers can -- we can help them and engage them as best as we can.

What's our third principle? Well, we offer independent insights. What's one of the biggest criticisms of the App Store? Well, that it's all paid marketing, right? Many of you in this room may have tried to engage us with suggestions to feature one of your apps or feature one of your games. And you probably know that money isn't the answer to that. Well, nothing in the redesigned App Store on Today Games or Apps is advertising. We are strong experts with an editorial point of view.

And we are great storytellers with a personality and with a perspective that we want to share. Now, why is this important? We want customers to really trust the recommendations that we make. We want them to be able to rely on what we share with them. Why? So they'll ultimately come back every day and find tremendous value in the App Store's editorial.

Fourth. While we wordsmith this a lot, let me tell you. We tell interesting and important stories. First it was, "We tell interesting stories." Then it was, "We tell insanely interesting stories." And this is where we landed, "Interesting and important stories." Now, for sure, not every single story on Today is going to be super, super important. But we're going to try really, really hard to make sure that they are very interesting. They key for us is that us being able to say that this app is great is no longer enough.

In the current app store, that's what we say. And we feature and promote those apps. In our new design, newly designed App Store, we will say that app is great, but then explain why we believe it is to our customers. We're here to provide thought-provoking ideas and really offer that context. Our fifth and last principle is we deliver a fresh and unexpected take. You know, the world of apps is moving at a ridiculous speed. It is our job, we believe, to reflect that innovative culture. You guys are pushing the world ahead.

All of you are shaping our lives with what you create. And often you've changed things in ways that are totally unexpected. So, we want to try to keep up with you. Keep up with that speed. And for us, we kind of call this our "the crazy ones" principles. A fresh and unexpected take.

So these five principles all together: We celebrate apps. We are the voice of the App Store. We offer independent insights. We tell interesting and important stories. And we deliver a fresh and unexpected take. When we do all this, if around the world we abide by these principles, then hopefully the Today tab and the whole new App Store become a pretty fabulous document of app culture. And for us at the App Store, app culture in almost every single way is culture.

All right. The new tabs: Today, Games, and Apps. Each of these tabs have the same goal. But we approach them differently. Today, well, Today is going to be updated every day. Don't really have a choice there. Hence the name. It's going to have a very focused perspective. It's going to be highly contextual. And when customers tap on cards in Today, they can actually go directly to buy that app or game from the card. Or of course, tap in and read one of our stories.

The Games and Apps tabs are going to be different. In many ways you can think about those as a 2.0 version or a newly evolved version of the Feature tab now, including categories and including charts, as you're seeing. Well, the Games and Apps tabs are going to be updated often.

Not every day. But more often than the weekly that you see in today's cadence. Games and Apps are going to offer a broader selection. And it's generally going to be a more transactional experience. Taps on Games and Apps will take customers directly to our amazing new product pages.

Well, let me chat a little bit about what we call our Story Framework. As you're seeing, stories on the App Store will cover many, many things. We'll have world premieres. We'll have major updates. We'll have tips and tricks and interviews with developers and lists upon lists. Well, our job is to write about what we think customers will find most interesting about an app or a game. And we really believe every app has a story to tell.

There are four main topics of stories for us. When we think about all the range, the broad, broad range of ideas that we have, we try to make -- we needed to make sense of that. So we started with just an idea of topics. What are the four main topics that we will cover? And for each topic we kind of have a statement of belief.

This is something that we really want to have customers feel in the writing and the content that we create. Our first topic is, of course, gaming. Whether it's a big name game or a small indie who has a car-based strategy, RPG, Infinite Runner, it doesn't matter. The games you make are so innovative and so creative, our game editors really believe that, you know what? Apps are the future of gaming.

In many ways apps are the present of gaming. Anyone agree with that comment? Apps are the present of gaming? Hey, we do have the biggest gaming platform in the world. And you know, we're very enthusiastic about expressing to our customers what we believe the future is in games. Our second topic: Lifestyle.

Well, what do we believe there? Apps transform your life. Whether it's social networking or photography. Whether it's dating or fitness or cooking or transportation, apps have helped us live in ways that we've never, ever, ever thought possible. And we believe in our lifestyle coverage that apps transform your life.

Third, culture and entertainment. Apps shape culture. Well, this is music, film, fashion. This is TV, pop culture and everything in between. The App Store is going to bring all that together. And so App Store [inaudible] content may talk to celebrities. We may talk to influencers. We may talk to culture creators of all kinds about the world of apps and games because we believe apps really do shape culture.

And our fourth and final topic is, of course, new tech and innovation. This is all things new, new, new. New services. New ideas. New capabilities. Completely new ways of getting things done with your iPhone or iPad. And we really feel that we can provide a service to customers to help them figure it all out. Help them get great use out of all the innovative work that you do. And help them potentially be introduced into a whole new way of doing things. In many ways it's very Apple of us. We want to make the complex world of technology simple.

All right. Four topics: Gaming, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, and new tech and innovation. When we take these topics, and once we've decided on one, then we want to apply what we call an "intention." And this is essentially the purpose or the goal of each story that you will see on the App Store. There are three of those.

The first we call "Inform." This is about being timely. This is about giving customers "need-to-know" information. This is to obviously let them know what's happening in the world right now. For example, you can say a new show is launching on Netflix. And if we do that well, our customer reaction may very likely be: "Cool. I want to get that." Our second intention is simply called "Help." Really, really important for us. This is about being instructional. This is about being motivational.

This is about sharing ideas that may be intuitive for us but not for all of our customers. How to get the most out of Instagram's new feature could be a helpful topic. And for us, this can be a really helpful way of reengaging our customers with some apps that they may have downloaded, may knew they loved them, but they've been left idle.

So how can we reengage our customers with some of those apps and even games by helping them, giving them new ideas of how to use one of these great things? And third, it's "Inspire." This is going to be the topic area or the intention where we have really creative content, really motivational content, really insightful. This is going to be everything from a twelve-year-old making an app to the 82-year-old making an app, both of whom were here this year. This is inspiring content that may go global around the world.

Inform, help and inspire. If we inform, "Cool. I want to get that." If we help, "I had no idea. Thanks." And if we inspire, "Wow! That's super interesting." And of course, we are not going to count any of those reactions unless customers use those exact phrases on the screen.

Let's see how this all comes together. All right. Our first world premiere ever, ever, ever is "The Art of the Impossible. Inside the extraordinary world of Monument Valley 2." Well, why did we choose this? First and foremost, it comes back to our first principle, which was Monument Valley 2 is an awesome, awesome game. How many folks have tried it so far? Since Monday release.

I can say I have not even got very far. But it's a phenomenal, phenomenal game. And Ustwo did a great job with this. So first and foremost, we chose Monument Valley 2 as our world premiere because the game is flat our awesome. Secondly, the Ustwo team gave us great access to their development process.

They allowed us in and we got to meet with some of their creatives and speak to some of their art directors about what inspired them to make Monument Valley 2. That was really interesting and exciting for us because we knew we could tell that story, then, to customers. And thirdly, we knew we had a great story for customers about Monument Valley 2. And of course it helped that it was only available on iOS.

All right. There's a moment in the third stage of Monument Valley 2 when a landslide separates mother from child. I actually did get to this level. To get her little one back, mom must navigate through intricate, artfully-crafted puzzle that constantly evolves. There was an actual moment, I got to it later, but one of our game editors, this really happened to him. He was playing and it's like "Oh my God. It was such an awesome moment." Then they embrace after. And it really kind of moved him. And we said, "You know what? That's the intro to our Monument Valley 2 story." We've seen some of the beautiful designs.

We've seen how the copy flows in between these great images and in-line video. And of course, we have pull quotes. Apple didn't invent pull quotes, but it's really nice to see them on the App Store. Here we quoted us to studio head Dan Gray, who wants to change people's perceptions of what games can be. That's our first world premiere of Monument Valley 2.

Here is our first How To column. Monika spoke about a little bit earlier. And you know what? There are many, many ways we could have spoken about VSCO. It's one of our favorite apps and one of our favorite photo filter apps for a long, long time. And here we wanted to -- we felt the most helpful angle would be kind of a basic primer of some of the new features of VSCO that many customers may not have used yet. Well, let's look at some of them.

Don't fall on stage. Like a good denim jacket -- it's funny, we had this image. It was initially the phrase is often "like a good leather jacket." We changed it to "like a good denim jacket." How many people love the denim jacket that we gave out WWDC Swag this year? So I'm glad, actually. Round of applause for the denim jackets.

Well here you are right here. Like a good denim jacket. VSCO's got a coolness factor that can't be measured. All right, we wanted to talk about creating gifts. Many folks don't know that you can create gifts in VSCO. It's a feature that many users, both amateur and pro, love to see. That was number one.

We go now, we can make journals of VSCO. We talk about some of their free filters. And of course, we end here with the kind of hidden, if you will, social network that's within VSCO. Tip number five, you can socialize without having to go anywhere else. So this was our first How To story.

This is very interesting because one of the biggest challenges about App Store Editorial is how can we serve a billion people with perspective? That's really, really, really hard. Well, you have to figure out first who you want to speak to. And it's as important to us on the App Store to talk to new users as it is to talk to advanced users. So this is column is more for an advanced user.

We call this a Deep Dive. Here's it's a conversation about causality. One of my game editors was really excited when he got to level 201 because everything changes on level 201. You want to feel like a genius, well, you better get there first. So this was a story about a great game in a kind of deeper context.

We talk about culture and entertainment, all right? It's the NBA finals. We know that game is on tonight. Go Warriors! I better not say anything else in San Jose, California. Go Warriors. And when you look at culture and entertainment through the lens of apps, there are two actual ways that you can enjoy it. Of course, you can watch the game live anywhere you are on ESPN.

But you can also play the game on NBA Live. And you can imitate Steph Curry or LeBron or whoever you'd like to be on the game itself. In many ways the game is probably going to be as good as -- the video game is going to imitate the real-life game and back and forth, seeing how these players are breaking all these records these days. So that's our culture and entertainment story.

A couple of examples. If there's one thing this morning I love all of you to leave here and remember about the all new App Store is that there are more ways to be featured than ever, ever before. We talked about "Meet the Developer." Well, yes. You can get interviewed. Our debut "Meet the Developer" piece featured Michelle Kennedy, the creator of a wonderful new social media app called Peanut, which is dedicated to moms.

It's our "Meet the Developer" column. We talked to her about many things, about her UI and some of the feature innovations. And we talked to her about some of the feedback she's received from her Peanut social media app and who it's for. So we're really excited to have a kind of deeper cultural conversation about an app that's really meaningful to a lot of folks.

"Peanut is human interaction in real life, facilitated by technology," Michelle said. Another way you can get featured is, of course, App of the Day. Here we chose Hit List. Game of the Day, Super Senso. Strategic sci-fi combat. Let me pause for a second and talk about App of the Day and Game of the Day.

We still have Editor's Choice for sure. In fact, Editor's Choice is now a badge on our new product pages. App of the Day and Game of the Day give us a third option of really honoring all the great work you do. Think of Editor's Choice like our Oscars. Like our Best Picture, if you will. App of the Day and Game of the Day are going to be similarly high quality, super awesome apps, but they'll also be pegged to a story that we may want to tell.

Another way to be featured is Collections. Collections are going to be on the Games and Apps tab. They are also going to be here on Today with a cool new design. You will see here that Heroes, what we call Heroes on the Apps tab. Here we have AirBNB to rediscover this. And we have Injustice 2 as a new game in the Games tab. Another way to be featured is lists, lists and more lists.

Our debut one is "15 Inspired Indie Games." Customers irrespective of the media love lists. And we love them as well on the App Store as well. All right. This brings us to the end. The big, big question. I hope you've enjoyed our kind of editorial vision. It really is a marriage of expert curation with this idea of engaging stories and content for our customers.

But really all we want to know is this: How do you reach us? Well, I'm happy to announce, and many of you, many have already seen it. But I'm happy to announce that on AppStore.com/promote, that will redirect to the new Developer page where not only will we ask you about your app and your game and the features and what's cool about it.

We'll also have a new area where it says, "Tell us your story." We're really, really excited to hear all of the stories you have to share with us about your creative process and what you want to share with your customers about apps and games. So thank you so much. We're really excited to be on this journey together. Thank you so much. I'd like now to bring back Mr. Pedraum Pardehpoosh to bring us home.

Thanks, Smokey. So you heard some insights into the why we did this redesign from the lead designer herself. This is a pretty special thing. And you heard the insights from Smokey about our doubling down on editorial. And got contact information for how to get in touch with the Editorial Team. This is the dawn of a new day, I think it's safe to say. But let's not lose sight of the fact that ultimately all of these efforts are meant to improve the discoverability of apps and games on the App Store.

By giving people a reason to come back to the App Store every day and giving the context of why we're making the recommendations that we are. This redesign is more than just a facelift. It's created new opportunities to get discovered that haven't existed before. Whether it's being included in one of the stories that Smokey outlined or appearing in the new Apps and Games tabs, which give focus to each of those areas.

But as always, you shouldn't just rely on being featured by the App Store to improve your app discovery. There's things you can do even starting now to get ready for the new App Store. And we're going to talk just a couple minutes about them. The first thing is in-app purchases. By way of quick review, in-app purchases now have a presence on the App Store. They can appear on the product details page. In featured content areas. In search results. And on your product page, excuse me.

This new ability combined with the new Subscriptions features that we announced last year, giving you brand new opportunities for creating sustainable businesses. So you'll want to start thinking now about the title of these in-app purchases and the description and the image that you're going to use for them, particularly now that they have such increased visibility. There's a couple of StoreKit sessions and an iTunes Connect session where you can get more information about this.

We'll review those at the end. Titles are now 30 characters in the App Store, in the all new App Store. But in addition, you will have a subtitle. Monika showed this in context as well. You'll want to think carefully about how to use this subtitle to convey what your app does. To give a little bit more information about it. To say something compelling. But don't be misleading.

Consider using your subtitle to highlight a feature or a typical use of your app that'll resonate with your audience. And this subtitle will follow your app title around throughout the app store, whether it's in the Apps or the Games tab, on a product page or in search results.

Let's talk about video app previews. We know that when customers engage with these video app previews, customers tend to download that app or game more. And so we thought about, "Well, how can we make it more obvious that these are videos?" Well, auto-playing is one way you can do that. And so we really encourage you, particularly now that you can have three of them. And they can be localized. You should really be thinking about how to create a video that encourages customers to download your app or game.

We think video is a big deal on the App Store. You can learn more about what makes a compelling video by visiting the site, and by visiting the App Store labs. Now, in addition to your app description, you can have 170 characters of text, which can be updated any time. We call this Promo Text. This will get concatenated on top of your app description.

And it won't require an app update. This is a great way to talk about one of the new features that's a temporary feature or a price promotion that you're having or some new accolade that your app has received. This is something else that you can start thinking about right now.

Let's talk about ratings and reviews. This got some applause. This warms my heart. We did a couple things in iOS 10.3 releasing a Reviews API. And allowing developers to respond to reviews. And the response has been tremendous. We've seen almost 400,000 -- this number's actually a little old. We've seen almost 400,000 responses to reviews since the launch of this. And we know that when customers go back and change their rating based on a response that they have received from a developer, overwhelmingly that change in direction is in a positive way. So this is really important.

In the new App Store, as Monika mentioned, we no longer reset app rating when you submit a new version. Which is awesome for many developers. Some developers wouldn't mind resetting that rating. And now, with the new App Store, with each submission you're going to have the ability to do so, to reset your rating. But you should be careful about that. It sounds like an interesting option. But we know that customers value that rating or seeing that an app has ratings, a lot, when they're making a download decision. So you will want to be careful about that.

You can get advice about best practices associated with responding to customer reviews by visiting this URL. And like we mentioned, we strongly recommend you make responding to customer reviews a regular part of your customer service hygiene. And in fact, in July, in iTunes Connect, we'll be enabling a new role in iTunes Connect for customer service so that you can have somebody that's focused just on that and doesn't have access to other elements inside there.

We're constantly improving the way Core Search works in the Apps Store. But the most visible thing we've done this year is by adding the stories that our editors are writing. Additionally, in-app purchases, categories and developers will be able to appear in these search results as well. Speaking of search, last year we announced Search Ads. And it launched in the US.

And it launched in the UK, Australia and New Zealand in April. The results have been really strong for advertisers. High tap through rates. Conversion rates above 50%. And cost per acquisition just over a dollar. These are really impressive numbers for those that know stuff about advertising. An apps flyer industry study published earlier this year described the quality of users Search Ads delivers were the best 30-day retention rate for iOS apps and a top three ranking for games.

We're working hard to deliver opportunities to drive downloads and engagement with your apps. And bringing Search Ads to more of the markets that you've told us are important to your business. Many developers large and small have already taken advantage of it. And this is another thing you'll want to consult with us about to find out if it's right for you.

In summary, there's plenty for you to be thinking about even now in advance of iOS 11 shipping as it relates to your app's presence in the Apps. And we hope you take advantage of the folks that are here from the App Store this week to learn more about this. For more information on this session you can visit this site.

There are related sessions listed as well as labs. Come speak with us. Last thing I want to say is that it was my honor to be able to introduce this new App Store that's been a few years in the running. But it was done with a lot of cross-functional work. I know some of those folks in the audience today. Those that work in the App Store please stand up for a second to get recognized. Give it up for these folks who have been working their butts off.

Thank you, everybody.