Why Is The iOS App Store Returning No Results?

There’s a really odd bug hitting iOS handsets at the moment that makes it difficult to search for Apps. If you’re affected, here’s how to work around it.

It all started innocently enough with Elly putting together today’s App Deals Of The Day. One of our readers had problems finding one of the iOS titles, and by pure chance it was one that I’d heard of (and for a brief while had on my own iPhone). So in order to prove that it did exist, I fired up my iPhone to search for it. Type in “Infect Them All” into the search field and…

Well, that’s odd. OK, I thought, perhaps its regionally locked or got pulled or something, so I do an online check. No, it definitely exists. I quickly sorted out a workaround — for those that need it, you can search for Apps by doing so in Safari to find the iTunes store link, which will launch it in the App Store app and allow you to download apps to your heart’s content.

It made me curious as to why that particular game wasn’t available, so I ran a quick search on my iPhone for something else — in this case, Angry Birds.

To check it wasn’t just my handset, I started gathering up iPhones to test it on. A few around the office all had the same problem, but just to be sure, I put a call through to a friend (thanks Matthew!) with a remarkable passion for all things Apple. Lo and behold, he got the same problem on an iPhone 4S and iPhone 3GS.

That doesn’t mean the issue is massively widespread per se; it could well be that it’s only the Australian market, and I can confirm that it seems to only be iPhones; my iPad will happily find as many Angry Birds as I’d care to fling. I’ve put a call into Apple for comment on this, but in the meantime — anyone else having problems searching for Apps on iPhone?
Image: lara604