To switch on Automatic Downloads on your iPhone, tap Settings→iTunes & App Store. After you do so, all apps you buy with iTunes on your computer or buy on other iOS devices will automatically appear on your iPhone. If you obtain an app on your computer, it won’t be available on your iPhone until you sync it with your computer — unless you’ve turned on Automatic Downloads.
Go to the iTunes Store on your computer.
Launch iTunes. In the source list on the left, click the iTunes Store. Click the Apps link, and the Tunes App Store appears.
Click the iPhone tab at the top of the screen (as opposed to the iPad tab). The iPhone App section of the App Store appears.
Check out the Apps drop-down menu.
The black App Store tab near the top of the screen is also a drop-down menu (as are most of the other department links to its left and right). If you click and hold down on most of these department links, a menu with a list of the department’s categories appears.
The menus won’t work if you’ve disabled JavaScript in your browser.
For example, if you click and hold down the Apps link, you can choose specific categories such as Books, Business, Education, and Entertainment from the drop-down menu, allowing you to bypass the App Store home page and go directly to that category.
Use the Search field in the App store.
Browsing the screen is helpful, but if you know exactly what you’re looking for, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that there’s a faster way than browsing: Just type a word or phrase in the Search Store field in the upper-right corner of the main iTunes window, and then press Enter or Return to initiate the search. The figure shows the result of a search for flashlight.
The bad news is that you have to search the entire iTunes Store, which includes music, television shows, movies, and other stuff in addition to iPhone apps.
Your search results are segregated into categories — one of which is iPhone Apps. And here’s even more good news: If you click the See All link to the right of the words iPhone Apps, all iPhone apps that match your search word or phrase appear.
Click the little downward-pointing triangle to the right of each item’s price to display a drop-down menu, as shown for the first Flashlight app. This menu lets you add the product to your wish list, send an e-mail with a link to this product, copy the link to this product to the Clipboard so you can paste it elsewhere, or share it on Facebook or Twitter.
Check out the detail screen from your computer.
To find out more about an app icon, a featured app, or a text link on any of the iTunes App Store screens, just click it. A detail screen like the one shown appears.
This screen should tell you most of what you need to know about the app, such as basic product information and a narrative description, what’s new in this version, the language it’s presented in, and the system requirements to run the app. Click the blue More link to the right of the Description and What’s New sections to expand them and see additional details.
Download an app.
Downloading an app is simple. When you find an app you want to try, just click its Get App or Buy App button. At that point, you have to log in to your iTunes Store account, even if the app is free.
After you log in, the app begins downloading. When the app has finished downloading, it appears in the Apps section of your iTunes library.