App Hits is a discovery app that finds iPhone and iPad apps that are on sale, new, hot, and/or top ranked. To make it into App Hits' radar, an app must currently be in the App Store's top 300 for its category.
An app can change prices multiple times a day. We try our best to keep on top of things, pulling fresh data each hour. But there will be times when App Hits' price is outdated. The App Store's price is always the correct price, and we ask everyone to please double-check the price in the App Store before downloading.
App Hits uses the day filter as a cut-off value (e.g., "new" app is released within 1 day) or comparison value (e.g., "sale" app's price is lower now than it was 3 days ago). If you use App Hits daily, we suggest setting the filter to 1 day so that you will see just the most recent apps that met App Hits' criteria. If you use App Hits a couple of times a week, we suggest setting the filter to 3 days. Finally, if you use App Hits just once a week or less, setting the day filter to 7 days should show you apps meeting App Hits criteria during the week.
According to Google, the average web page, as of May 2010, requires 320 KB of bandwidth. By comparison, we randomly browsed apps at the App Store and this required 620 KB on average, while loading a list of 100 apps at the App Store required 500 KB on average.
Here are some stats we compiled using App Hits:
Loading a top ranked list of 100 apps without table icons takes on average 120 KB.
Loading a top ranked list of 100 apps, then loading every table icon in the list, takes on average 500 KB.
Loading a description without the image takes on average 25 KB.
Loading a description with the image varied greatly, from a low of 100 KB to a high of over 500 KB
Note that the above is just an average. Product description vary greatly so bandwidth usage will vary accordingly.
App Hits default options are set to reduce bandwidth usage by retrieving table icons and omitting the product description image. This decision is made due to the fact that a typical user of App Hits may highlight many apps per session. Omitting the product description image greatly reduces bandwidth. If you prefer to see product images, these options can be changed via the action button in the top right hand corner.
App Hits users who are on unlimited data plans or Wi-Fi may want to set App Hits to load both icons and description image as this offers the best user experience.
An app must meet one or more of these requirements (within the selected time period):
1) Moved up at least 250 positions in its category.
2) Moved up at least 100 positions and is in top 25 of its category.
3) Moved up at least 50 positions and is in top 10 of its category.
4) Moved up at least 90% in rank.
5) At the top of its category.
6) In the top 3 of all categories.
You can either 1) click on our icon in the home page, or 2) from anywhere, double click the home key, then click on our icon.
If App Hits was already running, you will continue from where you left off. On the other hand, if App Hits is newly loaded, it will load the list you last selected from your previous session.
We retrieve the latest rankings and prices via the iTunes Store RSS Feed at the top of each hour. However, it takes 20 to 30 minutes to download/calculate/update our database. You can check status via the action button in the top right hand corner and choosing "About App Hits".
The box provides information about the highlighted app. It shows the minimum and maximum values for both the app's ranking and price during the selected time period. For top ranked apps, the time period is 7 days.
Similar to the plus sign at the App Store, an asterisk indicates that the app is compatible with both iPhone and iPad.