Problem with Connect IQ Store (Chrome & Edge) - empty pages after page 4

AlphaMonkeyC , Brandon.ConnectIQ, Kyle.ConnectIQ - I'm sorry for addresing all of you. I just don't know who is the best person to write about it... 

I consider this problem important because it reduces the visibility of ALL developers' applications, and for some of them this is probably their only income. So, can you point to someone who could help solve this problem? 

I doubt there are many devs where CIQ is their only income, and if it is, they are likely already near the top of lists already.

On the website, if I search for something like "simple", I get 1293 results and 860 if I then select just watch faces, which works out to 29 pages. I went past page 10 and then got bored, You can also sort by things like most popular, most recent, etc.  

A search for "watch" gives 6534 results and 218 pages, and selecting just watch faces, 5444 results.  I'm not sure how being on page 80 really helps with an app's visibility. What it gets down to is that no matter how you look at it, it's hard to be visible when you're up against 100's or 1000's of other apps.

Well, regardless of whether it "matters" whether anyone bothers to go past page 4, the simple fact is that the functionality is (was) broken, like the OP said. If the search results claim to have 85 pages (for example), and the UI only returns 4 pages, that's a bug.Or it was a bug, anyway.

However, it seems they have 'fixed" it in their own way. (See below.)

I noticed this problem months ago, and I guess I just kinda assumed it would be fixed by now.

I did some testing with this yesterday, and it looks like the interface just refuses to return any results after the first 120, no matter what you do.

e.g. The normal links for the first 4 pages of most popular apps are as follows (and all of them work):

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/mostPopular&showAllDevices=false

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/mostPopular?start=30&showAllDevices=false

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/mostPopular?start=60&showAllDevices=false

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/mostPopular?start=90&showAllDevices=false

The 5th page is:

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/mostPopular?start=120&showAllDevices=false

And it shows 0 results, even though the UI *used* to say that there was something like 85 pages of results.

If you manually edit the link to start at 119 (for example), you get exactly one result:

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/mostPopular?start=119&showAllDevices=false

Note that some categories (like Trending), actually have naturally seem to have less than 120 results, so there's no problem there. Either that or Trending is artificially capped at 90. (I wouldn't know since I usually don't navigate that far)

Anyway, it looks like Garmin has "solved" this problem by just removing the total number of pages from the search results UI. You can just keep clicking on the right arrow/chevron ("next page') at the bottom of the page for more results, and when you do it too many times, you get the following error:

I totally get Garmin's reasoning tho. They probably (correctly) surmised that most users won't bother clicking on "next page" that many times.

It is slightly annoying that they also removed the *current* page number from the search results UI.

EDIT: It looks like nothing may have changed for the non-device-specific results. The bug that the OP reported is with device-specific results, but it's not clear to me how to navigate to those without editing the URL or going to an old bookmark.

is it says 85 pages you can go 85 pages:

categories are different for some reason, as it looks like some don't even have 4 pages of apps

Oh I see what I did differently. Garmin didn't make any changes, it's the *device-specific* category pages which show current and total number of pages.

Like I said, categories seem to be artificially limited to 120 results (or maybe 90 for trending), and if you go past the 3rd or 4th page, you get "We couldn't find anything for your search".

If you use the device-specific link that the OP posted, you can see that the UI claims there are 85 pages in the "most popular Descent MK2 apps" category, but the 5th page is blank. (It's not clear to me how you can navigate to device-specific results without editing the URL or going to an old bookmark, though.)

Page 4:

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/devices/descentmk2/apps?start=90&sortType=mostPopular

Page 5:

apps.garmin.com/.../apps

So from Garmin's POV, the problem here is probably that

- they don't expose the device-specific results anymore, but they still work if you go directly to the URL

- the device-specific results still have the current and total number of pages, because they haven't been updated to be like the non-device-specific results

TL;DR I think:

- Garmin got rid of the device specific results (unless you directly navigate to them via old bookmark or edited URL). EDIT: Or as Jim pointed out, by using Garmin Express

- Garmin artificially limited the category-specific results in all cases

- For the non-device-specific category-specific results, they got rid of the current and total # of pages in the UI

- For the device-specific category-specific results, they didn't both to hide the current and total # of pages, because they believe that most people will never see these results. EDIT: Or maybe it was just an oversight.

The problem here is that some people may still have bookmarks for the device-specific pages. EDIT: And they can get to the device-specific pages via Garmin Express

It's still sub-optimal UX that the category results allow you to click "next page" (right arrow) on the final page of results, only to give you an error message. That next page button should be hidden.

If you go to the app store by way of Garmin Expess, you get a view based on device, where you can filter by app type, most recent, most popular, etc

But even though it says there are many pages, it too stops at 4 so there's a bug there too,

Got it, thanks! I never launch the app store from Garmin Express, so I wasn't sure how the OP was getting to that page.

Yeah, overall I think Garmin just hasn't been maintaining the device-specific pages in the same way as the non-device-specific pages. It seems inconsistent to me that you can get those pages from Garmin Express, but not from the store front page. (I realize that the device-specific links were purposely removed from the store front page.)

As a casual user, I always access the IQ Store from within Garmin Express. This allows me to see only the apps for my watch and avoids annoying messages like "This app is not supported by your device". 

I've never had this problem with the Descent MK1, but as I haven't changed anything else on the watch after finding my favourite apps I don't know since when this problem has existed. After switching to the MK2 version I set off to the IQ Store to search for new stuff (from within Garmin Express) and suddenly encountered this problem....

By the way, I think that I am not the only user who searches the shop in this way, hence the idea of creating my post, because I think that this is a big limitation for the user.

Thank you for taking up the subject, maybe the problem will be noticed and eventually fixed :)