There was a time when discovering a great iPhone app felt like discovering a secret.
The App Store was still finding its feet. Developers were experimenting with what an app could actually be, Apple was figuring out how to curate this strange new ecosystem, and the rest of us were spending far too much time tapping through pages of tiny icons looking for something worth downloading.
And somewhere in the middle of all that was AppChase.net.
Today, I’m bringing it back.
Not as a tribute. Not as a museum piece. And certainly not because the internet needs another website full of app lists.
AppChase is back because: I still think there’s something missing.
Before every app had a million downloads
The early App Store was a completely different place.
There were no enormous social media campaigns behind every launch. There wasn’t an app for absolutely everything. You couldn’t necessarily ask an AI to recommend five alternatives before you’d even finished typing the name of what you wanted.
You found things by chance.
You’d hear about an app on a blog. Someone would mention it on Twitter. A friend would show you something on their iPhone and you’d immediately want it yourself.
And then you’d download it.
That sense of discovery was a huge part of what made the early iPhone so exciting.
AppChase existed in that world.
It wasn’t simply another directory of apps. It became a place where apps could be discovered, talked about and, importantly, noticed.
AppChase had some authority
Looking back, that’s probably the thing I remember most.
AppChase had a voice.
If something appeared on AppChase, it meant something.
Developers wanted their apps noticed. Readers came looking for the next thing worth installing. The site sat somewhere between the App Store itself and the growing community of people who were obsessed with finding what was next.
And that was particularly valuable in those early years.
The App Store was growing at a ridiculous pace, but finding the good stuff wasn’t always easy.
AppChase helped with that.
It was part of a wider ecosystem of independent websites that gave the App Store some personality. Before algorithms became incredibly good at predicting what we’d like, there were people doing the filtering.
People who were genuinely excited about apps.
That distinction is important.
AppShopper and the art of watching the App Store
AppChase wasn’t alone in trying to make sense of the rapidly expanding App Store.
Around the same time, Arnold Kim’s AppShopper became one of the most useful destinations for anyone who wanted to keep track of what was happening across Apple’s app ecosystem.
Where AppChase focused on discovery and editorial attention, AppShopper offered a more comprehensive, constantly changing view of the store itself. It helped people follow new releases, updates, price changes and app availability without having to repeatedly search through the App Store by hand.
That was a big deal in the early days.
Apps changed frequently. Prices moved up and down. New releases could disappear beneath an ever-growing stream of launches. AppShopper gave users a way to keep watch, build wish lists and find opportunities to download something at the right moment.
It also reflected something important about that era: app discovery was not controlled by a single feed or recommendation engine.
People built their own systems.
They followed sites such as AppShopper. They subscribed to updates. They read independent blogs. They shared links with friends. They paid attention to the people and services that helped separate the interesting from the ordinary.
Arnold Kim understood that the App Store was not just a storefront. It was a living catalogue, and users needed better tools for navigating it.
AppShopper became part of the infrastructure of early App Store discovery.
AppChase occupied a slightly different place within that same world. It was less about tracking every movement and more about highlighting the apps that deserved a closer look.
Both approaches mattered.
One helped you keep up with the store. The other helped you decide where to look next.
And then the App Store grew up
Of course, everything changed.
The App Store became enormous. Apps became businesses. Developers became companies. Discovery became an industry of its own.
The little world that AppChase originally inhabited gradually disappeared.
And, eventually, so did AppChase.
But I’ve never really forgotten it.
Over the years I’ve found myself looking back at those old screenshots, old posts and old app launches and thinking about just how different the internet felt.
There was a sense that you could actually be there when something happened.
You could find an app on a Tuesday afternoon, write about it that evening, and suddenly thousands of people were downloading it.
That’s difficult to recreate today.
But I think it’s worth trying.
So, here we are again
AppChase.net is back.
The idea isn’t to recreate the website pixel-for-pixel or pretend it’s still 2009.
Instead, I’m interested in taking what made AppChase special and bringing that spirit for first place to the modern App Store.
Apps are still fascinating.
Developers are still making wonderfully weird things.
And there are still those moments when you stumble across something and think:
“How have I not heard about this before?”
That’s what AppChase should be about.
Discovery.
The good stuff.
The weird stuff.
The beautifully designed stuff.
The apps that deserve a little more attention.
And perhaps, occasionally, the apps that remind us why we fell in love with the iPhone in the first place.
A useful tool for sharing apps
The return of AppChase isn’t only about looking back at the history of app discovery.
It’s also about making it easier to share apps today.
That’s why AppChase now includes a link generator at:
App Store links can be awkward to create, especially when you’re trying to share a specific app across different platforms, write about it on a website or include it in a post without manually searching for the correct URL. The link generator provides a simple way to create a clean, shareable link for any app.
It’s a small tool, but it fits naturally with what AppChase has always been about.
Discovery only becomes useful when it can be passed along.
A great app might begin with one person finding it, but its story continues when that person can easily send it to a friend, include it in an article or share it with a wider audience. The link generator is designed to make that part of the process a little easier.
In the early days of the App Store, sharing an app often meant copying a link, sending an email or telling someone exactly what to search for. Today, there are more ways to publish and communicate, but the basic need is the same: people need a straightforward way to point others towards something worth trying.
That’s what the AppChase link generator* is for.
A little bit of history, with a future attached
Bringing AppChase back is also part of something slightly bigger for me.
I’ve spent a lot of time recently digging through the history of the old RazorianFly days, restoring old posts, finding forgotten stories and generally wandering around the early Apple web again.
And it’s been surprisingly nice.
Not just because of the nostalgia, but because it reminded me that independent websites once had a real place in the technology ecosystem.
You didn’t need to be a giant publication.
You didn’t need a newsroom of 50 people.
You could have a website, an opinion, a Mac, an iPhone and an unreasonable amount of enthusiasm.
Sometimes that was enough.
AppChase came from that era.
And now, after all these years, it’s getting another go.
Welcome back to AppChase.net.
What app will you find next? 🚀
* AppChase.net takes full advantage of the iTunes Affiliate Program and therefore I may make a small kick-back commission from the purchase of apps downloaded using the App Store links provided.
AppChase is not affiliated with Apple Inc.
Leave a Reply