India-based Appszito Proposes an Alternative Apps Search

I’m a big fan of sites that tell me about useful apps, particularly when they are discounted [1]. So I was curious to see Mumbai-based Appszito offer an alternative to regular app store searching, with a focus on discounted paid mobile apps. The site is only three months old, but it already offers some interesting features for those looking for new mobile apps.

The site’s homepage is almost Google-like in its simplicity, with just a search bar, and some navigation links for iOS and Android deals on top. You can also set options for which platform you’d like to search – iPad, iPhone, Android, or all. For the subsequent search results, it’s apparent that Appszito is not going to win any awards in typography or design. At least not yet. And while you’ll still have to scroll through quite a few search results, I’m told that there are plans to add price filtering in the future.

search for 'markdown' apps for Android. Still looking...

Appszito co-founder Shreyas explained that his service has an advantage over iTunes search, if you are searching by function rather than the application’s name. He notes the example search query of ‘restaurants in singapore’ which is not nearly as good as Appszito’s results for the same terms [2].

As for Android, Shreyas also points out that Appszito has a leg up on Google Play’s search as well:

Google Play search is good but it doesn’t have all the apps for Android. Many competitive stores have good deals on apps, and this is where Appszito comes in to play, [saving] users time and effort to go and search on many apps store. Very soon we will be releasing our search API where apps stores can integrate our search in their stores.

I’m told that currently Appszito is in “customer acquisition mode” but will soon be launching sponsored apps, allowing developers to bid on advertising, much like Google’s sponsored ads. They are also planning to launch their own native apps on both iOS and Android, and are speaking with some carriers about getting Appszito on smartphones as a pre-loaded app.

So far Appszito is self-funded, but they are actively seeking seed funding in order to scale up its services.

Overall, I think that this is not a bad start considering how young Appszito actually is. Though there are certainly a lot of fun directions to take their service, if some additional filtering mechanisms are added to float the best apps and best deals to the top.