Overwhelming might be the best way to describe the selection of mobile applications in Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) App Store, whose download count is nearing 24 billion. There are more than 550,000 apps there. If you know what you want or you’re interested in one of the store’s featured items, fine, but if you’re hoping to navigate the inventory for something special or especially arcane, well, good luck with that.

It appears help is on the way, though. Apple confirmed this week that it had purchased San Francisco-based app-search specialist Chomp. Bloomberg noted that sources familiar with the deal said the purchase price was about $50 million.

Chomp had raised a little more than $2.5 million in venture funding, TechCrunch pointed out, adding that all of the company’s 20 or employees likely will soon be joining the Apple team. Chomp also is designed to navigate and search app libraries catering to devices equipped with Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android operating system.