The iPhone and iPad App Store is the best of these app stores in every way bar one. Usually the argument that it’s the best of them is said to be because of the sheer number of apps you can get. It’s certainly true that there are a lot: something like 1.2 million.

I’d say the reason it’s the best is that the apps on it are the best. The most mature, the most feature-rich, the simply best-designed. Hopefully it won’t always be thus but Apple has the benefit that coding for iOS and then releasing your apps is easier on its platform than on Android. And Android has the problem that its users don’t pay money. It’s a fascinating example of how a culture can arise around a technology; iPhone users will pay for an app they want, Android users think if it isn’t free, there’s something wrong with it.

Mind you, even on iOS you get people saying £3.99 is expensive or overpriced and that’s a laugh.

Just on this issue of culture and technology, I do also enjoy how there’s a funny snobbishness with some developers who make announcements apologising for releasing on the iOS App Store first. They say a lot about how great their Android version will be but the thing is that it’s plainly easier for them to code for iOS.

Nonetheless, there can be few App Stores where it is harder to find the thing you want. Macworld has done a feature about finding apps that I want you to see but as full as it is of advice for how to search this bleedin’ thing, I don’t think it’s critical enough. When Microsoft Office finally came out for iPad, I went on the store and I searched for the words “Microsoft Office” and I still couldn’t find it.

I don’t think there can be a worse example of how hard it is to find apps. IF they weren’t so useful, wouldn’t sane people give up? The doubtlessly sane folk at Macworld have persisted far better and far further than I have and they’ve got five solutions for you.

I want to suggest a sixth. One of theirs is that it’s worth searching on the developer’s name. It’s not guaranteed to help, they say, but it can and if you like one developer’s app you may well like other ones they do. I agree with that very much and would add that when you find one, there is a tab called Related that shows you the firm’s other software right there.

This is how I found OmniOutliner after being such a fan of OmniFocus and now I am such a fan of OmniOutliner. I hope this happens to you too and if it does, this Macworld article will have helped.