Apple is trying to help its users sift through the mountains of available apps by adding two new sections to the App Store and Mac App Store: "Free App of the Week" and "Editors' Choice." As expected, the two sections are meant to highlight high-quality apps for iOS and the Mac that users might otherwise miss due the sheer number of other apps being added to the two stores each day. But while the new sections are a welcome addition to the app stores, they still don't do much to improve the app discovery problem when users try to search.

Some current Editors' Choice picks on the iOS App Store include the new Facebook Camera app, Extreme Skater, Sketchbook Ink, and Air Mail. As for the Free App of the Week, the company is highlighting Cut the Rope: Experiments, which is free for a limited time as part of the new promotion. On the Mac App Store, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Cobook are being highlighted as Editors' Choices.

The new sections are helpful to a degree—users are always looking for new apps that rise above the rest in quality, and the new sections will help to promote those apps. But as pointed out by our friends at The Apple Blog, this is largely just a band-aid solution when viewed in the larger scope of app discovery. Even the most specific search terms, when plugged into the App Store, can turn up thousands of hits for other apps that may not even be relevant to what the user wanted. Digging through page after page of results can be tiring, and users are unlikely to have the patience or attention span to spend more than a few minutes trying to find what they want before giving up.

What the App Store needs is a better search mechanism, which is where Apple's acquisition of Chomp should come in. The free iOS app allows users to search the App Store using a proprietary algorithm to figure out what apps actually do, instead of just using keywords or app names, and has been touted as a lifesaver by App Store junkies. If and when Apple finally integrates Chomp's algorithm into the App Store itself, searching should be much easier than it is now. But until then, we'll have to make do with the new sections that Apple is giving us. Do you agree with this week's selections?