Introduction to {appler}
Introduction
The {appler} package is a wrapper around Apple’s App Store Search API. This allows the user to pull information about artists, applications, and anything else available on iTunes or the Apple App Store.
Other functions are included to allow the pulling of information not included in the search API such as application reviews and split of ratings.
Apple Store Search
The first thing to do is find the ID of the entity you are analysing.
The search_apple function will use Apple’s API to return
any items that are related to the search terms entered. By default it
pulls tracks and audiobooks, however with the entity
parameter we can specify we want to search for artists or
applications.
# Artist ID can be obtained from the artistId column
taylor_swift_songs <- search_apple("Taylor Swift")
taylor_swift <- search_apple("Taylor Swift", media = "music", entity = "musicArtist")
str(taylor_swift)
#> 'data.frame': 1 obs. of 8 variables:
#> $ wrapperType : chr "artist"
#> $ artistType : chr "Artist"
#> $ artistName : chr "Taylor Swift"
#> $ artistLinkUrl : chr "https://music.apple.com/us/artist/taylor-swift/159260351?uo=4"
#> $ artistId : int 159260351
#> $ amgArtistId : int 816977
#> $ primaryGenreName: chr "Pop"
#> $ primaryGenreId : int 14
taylor_swift_id <- taylor_swift$artistIdApplications are slightly different, where they instead of
artistId, trackId is used to store the unique
ID.
github_tracks <- search_apple("GitHub")
github_app <- search_apple("GitHub", media = "software", entity = "software")
# Over 50 apps are returned, however the top is the official GitHub app
github_app_id <- github_app$trackId[1]
cat(github_app_id)
#> 1477376905When searching software, a lot more information is returned, such as
application metadata (size, version, release notes) and average rating.
Use str(github_app) to take a look at everything
included.
Manual Search
Alternatively the ID can be found in the URL.
For artists and tracks it can be found as the last part of the URL.
For example, to find out about Taylor Swift the ID is
159260351 (from https://music.apple.com/us/artist/taylor-swift/159260351),
or her latest album Midnights is 1650841512 (from https://music.apple.com/us/album/midnights-3am-edition/1650841512).
For applications it is almost the same, however it is prefixed with
“id” which will need to be removed when using functions from {appler}.
For example the ID for GitHub is 1477376905 (from https://apps.apple.com/us/app/github/id1477376905).
Apple Store Lookup
If you already have the ID, you can use lookup_apple and
it will return the same information as search_apple but for
the specific entity chosen.
taylor_swift_lookup <- lookup_apple(taylor_swift_id)
str(taylor_swift_lookup)
#> 'data.frame': 1 obs. of 8 variables:
#> $ wrapperType : chr "artist"
#> $ artistType : chr "Artist"
#> $ artistName : chr "Taylor Swift"
#> $ artistLinkUrl : chr "https://music.apple.com/us/artist/taylor-swift/159260351?uo=4"
#> $ artistId : int 159260351
#> $ amgArtistId : int 816977
#> $ primaryGenreName: chr "Pop"
#> $ primaryGenreId : int 14Comparing the results of search and lookup:
Reviews
Once you have the ID, you can get to the interesting part: the reviews. Apple has an RSS feed that enables you to pull the latest 500 reviews for an application, along with information such as the version that was being reviewed, and what rating was given by the user.
There is a limitation that you can only pull the reviews for a single country, and by default the reviews from the US will be returned, however any ISO-2 country code can be used. If the app isn’t available in that country, then there will be a 400 error.
github_reviews <- get_apple_reviews(github_app_id)
head(github_reviews)
#> id review_time author app_version
#> 1 11704292215 2024-09-09 01:58:02 Crystalline Water 1.176.0
#> 2 11699415021 2024-09-07 17:33:21 thep0tAToÆ 1.176.0
#> 3 11679959011 2024-09-02 08:07:56 BellaCityDwella 1.175.0
#> 4 11668204137 2024-08-30 03:26:28 Ahmed16-8 1.175.0
#> 5 11667280363 2024-08-29 20:50:02 Nick “Nick” Holden 1.175.0
#> 6 11659802206 2024-08-27 20:11:21 DWash5200 1.175.0
#> title rating
#> 1 I’m upon go 5
#> 2 less functionality than browser 1
#> 3 Excellent Application 5
#> 4 Amazing 5
#> 5 Just merged a PR from little screen 5
#> 6 D Diamond Solutions, LLC 5
#> review
#> 1 Wonderful work by the team today at our press event. Looking down to our new storefront in the app booth
#> 2 I cant rename files on my iphone se or even delete files then i try and go in the browser and everything is tiny and difficult to do the most simple things like they are trying to hide the basic features and the complex stuff is right at the top it makes no sense design needs work it needs functuonality to come first and simplicity then the more complex stuff is deeper into the process not the other way around i need to have the option to rename and delete a file if the whole point is a repo app let me do the basic stuff atleast jeez
#> 3 From the desktop, to the phone and iPad, this app provides an excellent experience.
#> 4 This app is absolutely insane. The amount of functionality I can get from my phone is phenomenal!
#> 5 Before I could only break prod from big screen
#> 6 Awesome app.Ratings
One extra piece of functionality available in {appler} is the ability
to scrape the rating split from the App Store. Whilst the average rating
for the app is available in search_apple, it is useful to
know how many 5* ratings are given and how many 1* ratings are
given.