What is Interview Forge?

Interview Forge helps you practice mock interviews, follow study plans, track career goals, review learning analytics, and prepare across 36 pages.

Search in Rotated Sorted Array at Apple — Interview Guide

How to approach Search in Rotated Sorted Array in a Apple interview: the optimal approach, what Apple interviewers look for, and company-specific tips.

Updated 2026-09MediumBinary Search

The problem at Apple

Search for a target value in an array that was sorted then rotated at an unknown pivot, in O(log n) time.

Apple uses this problem to assess craft, detail, and domain depth. Expect Apple-specific follow-ups that tie the solution back to production reasoning and the company's engineering bar.

Key concepts

At each mid, one half is always sorted; identify it by comparing nums[mid] with nums[left].
If the target lies in the sorted half, search there; otherwise search the other half.
Handle duplicates carefully — when nums[left] == nums[mid] you cannot tell which side is sorted.

Approach

def search(nums, target):
    l, r = 0, len(nums) - 1
    while l <= r:
        m = (l + r) // 2
        if nums[m] == target: return m
        if nums[l] <= nums[m]:
            if nums[l] <= target < nums[m]: r = m - 1
            else: l = m + 1
        else:
            if nums[m] < target <= nums[r]: l = m + 1
            else: r = m - 1
    return -1

What Apple looks for

Domain expertise relevant to the team.
Craft — performance, edge cases, and polish.
Passion for the product and user experience.
Independence and ownership of a feature end-to-end.

Unlock the full guide

Premium members get every DSA, system design, company and role interview guide — plus AI practice, mock interviews, and analytics.

Unlock with Premium