There are a lot of reasons to hate iTunes. It's bloated, slow, and many of its functions are performed far better by iTunes alternatives. When it comes to searching for iOS apps, for example, there are some great third party options that make that process much easier, one of the best being the aptly named App Store.

Not officially affiliated with Apple, the App Store delivers a far superior desktop browsing experience when searching for iOS or Mac apps. Search results appear as a list, and you can choose to expand the screenshots of all of the results so you can see what these apps have to offer. The search results also appear to be limited to 100 apps per search term.

Now of course because the App Store is not affiliated with Apple, clicking on the button to open up more info on that app will launch its browser based iTunes page. From there, you can either launch iTunes, or can choose to move to your iOS device and search for that specific app.

AppStore

So since desktop users still have to go through iTunes to actually install the app, you might be wondering why bother using this web app?

The website is simple and easy to use. You can search specifically for iPhone, iPad, or Mac compatible apps, and can filter those results by the last update, ratings, and price. You can also limit your search results to specific categories or age restrictions. Most significant is the ability to filter your search results to free apps only.

How do you prefer to search for iOS and Mac apps? Let us know in the comments.