Apple acts to boost high-end App sales in iTunes 9

Apple made a host of improvements to iTunes within iTunes 9, but at least one of those is going to be of huge benefit to a key category of the company’s stakeholders – Apps developers.

The company has introduced a new App Store chart for the most profitable applications, which it has dubbed, the ‘Top Grossing’ chart.

This is going to benefit some of its developers, as it joins the ‘Top Paid’ and ‘Top Free’ apps lists it already offers through the App Store.

What sets this list apart is that it ranks applications by the amount of revenue they generate, which should help ensure more expensive applications aren’t buried by those 99-cent apps that currently dominate the ‘Top Paid’ chart.

It’s an extensive list, too, listing 200 of the most sophisticated applications being made available through the App Store.

We suspect this is Apple’s gentle way to create a premium App Store without ruining the user experience we’ve had so far. It’s also an answer to big-name developers who have complained that they have been forced into price wars with developers of cheaper apps, even though their applications are more sophisticated, expensive and have taken longer to develop.

This chart together with the introduction of Genius recommendations on the App Store should help reassure developers Apple is working to improve navigation of the apps it offers through its store, as well as many recent promises to improve its App Store approval processes.