A quick question: While navigating the Mac and iOS appstores, I often see some apps marked with a grey rectangular box with rounded edges called 'Essentials', which appears just below the rating of the app. The selection of apps marked in this ways seems quite well thought-out to me. Is there a way to see all these 'Essential' apps in one place?
For example, 'Day One', 'Evernote' and 'WolframAlpha' are all 'Essential' apps in the iOS store.
Best Answer
After a bit of research (in the stores themselves, using Google, and in the Apple Developer Program resources), I'm rather sure no list of these is available from Apple themselves or from any third party.
I found the best ways to find the apps tagged as "Essentials," is to look in these places:
My impression is the difference between the "Essentials" tag and e.g. "Editors' Choice" is not very well defined, and just picked by a specific Apple store editor. And I noticed some of those apps may be only essential to a very specific crowd. E.g. the djay 2 app, also tagged "Essentials," is most definitely the best and most popular DJ app for the iPad out there, but it's only essential to a select group.
In the end, although there is no definitive list, going though the various collections made by Apple editors, will lead you to a lot of "Essential" apps.