Faced with heavy unrest over the way it’s been grouping applications on the virtual shelves of the App Store, Apple this week is making some changes to the store’s layout aimed at showcasing a broader range of top offerings in each category and showcase more apps at once.



Some sites have reported being tipped off to the overnight design tweaks, which “accomplished some important things,” according to the some developers who have spoken on the changes. First, he said, Apple now highlights the most popular applications on each category page.

As part of this new grouping, Apple has also separated the most popular Free Apps — which previously dominated the most popular listings — from most popular Paid Apps, breaking each out into separate sidebar modules that flank the general listings for each category. In addition, the new layout is more consistent in design with the AppStore application on the iPhone, its been noted. This should help with the proliferation of “99 cent apps” that tend to flood the most popular pages at times.

It may solve all the problems, but it should address some of the developer issues concerning the App Store. Kudos to Apple for continuing to care about the people who supply them with the apps they sell.

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