iPhonefreak width="190"

A pair of new features for App Store users have been initiated over the weekend, a Try Before You Buy section and a Genius recommendation service for your iPad. One of these has more use than the other, and here is why.

The Try Before You Buy section is not the product of negotiating a trial-period for many of the big name and pricey apps we perhaps don’t want to shell out for, without first making sure it does what we want.  No, it’s a 98-app collection of all the Lite and free versions of full-price game apps already found in the App Store.  It can be found here and can be sorted by Name, Featured or Release Date.

The idea is fine, but aside from the the look through what was available for the purposes of this post, we’re not sure if we would ever feel the need to return.  Under the Free On the App Store banner you’ll also be able to browse through New & Noteworthy and a Favorites collection of free apps, which don’t just focus on games.  We also can’t spot this outside of the US App Store, can anyone confirm this?

The second new feature is Genius recommendations for your iPad.  It works in the same way as the Genius for the iPhone and the music store, and is best accessed directly via the App Store icon on your iPad, where you’ll see the Genius icon at the bottom of the screen.  It quickly scans your apps and provides various other ones you may be interested in.

When we tested it on ours, there was nothing that took out fancy in the initial lot, but as with other Genius searches, it gets better the more you tell it what you’re not interested in, as at first the recommendations are slightly odd.  For example, why having the BBC News app makes me likely to be interested in French-language magazine app Paris Match, I’m not sure.

We’ll be using the Genius search again, but as for the Try Before You Buy, we doubt it.  How about you?

(source: ElectricPig, TUAW)