400,000 apps in the App Store have never been downloaded says report
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The sad thing about this is that it goes against the hopes and dreams of a number of small developers who read about the success that major developers are having. It's easy to see a game like Angry Birds take off, make a ton of moola, and think that this money tree can be easily planted. The reality is that it takes money for promotion and a whole lot of luck. Adeven CEO Henschel says that without a proper search mechanism in the App Store, the only way to get noticed is through the lists showing the top titles.
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Adeven will start providing Android analytics in the fourth quarter and it will be interesting to see if there are as many dead apps in the Google Play Store as found in the App Store.
source: Adeven via GigaOM
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40 Comments
1. remixfa posted on 02 Aug 2012, 09:13 36 1
wow.
proves once again that number of apps dont mean jack. everyone uses the same quality apps and it pretty much confirms my thoughts that there are only 100k-200k apps actually in regular use by people.
12. cepcamba posted on 02 Aug 2012, 10:24 15 2
Yep. To be honest, my N8 running Symbian Belle has pretty much all the apps I have on my XperiaS save for the droid-exclusive ones.
On the same note, WP has a fraction of droid and iOS apps but all of them (nearly) are of top quality.
23. crankyd00d posted on 02 Aug 2012, 12:30 6 0
Not trying to be an ass but it is Android, not "droid", Droid is Verizon and it represents everything that is wrong with Android (just a few things really)
37. jroc74 posted on 03 Aug 2012, 18:25 0 0
Interesting question...lol
I do think quality is more important than quantity. BUT...if the quantity isnt too far from the quality, then quantity is better.
Like I used the E Trade app on my Android phone and my kids mother iPhone. I liked it better on the iPhone, but it wasnt so bad on Android that I hated it.
Still...interesting question for debate.
13. SuperAndroidEvo posted on 02 Aug 2012, 10:26 15 3
Apple always boasts about their app store tally. Didn't they ever think that this news would get out? 400,000 is way more than half of the TOTAL number the claim.
Man this is crazy.
I am VERY shocked!!!!
17. Aeires (unregistered) posted on 02 Aug 2012, 10:33 8 0
Too bad they didn't have a breakdown of tablet apps vs phone apps. Apple boasts about their tablet apps a lot, if it's the same situation as this, then it's over rated.
26. SuperAndroidEvo posted on 02 Aug 2012, 14:20 5 1
Yep NOW it wouldn't shock me if Apple fluffed or finagled the iPad's numbers also.
Apple must really think that people are stupid & would not look & see stuff like this. I mean did they ever really think this would get out?
Seriously?!?
24. smartphone posted on 02 Aug 2012, 12:50 3 0
It means apple store has only 250,000 apps.
Its no surprise and if you count number of apps that had been downloaded more than 100 times you will get few thousands apps. That is the truth people are mad about the numbers.
I had seen only one geek who had installed more than 200 apps ( others all below 100).
Across all platforms people had almost same type of apps.
Its quality that matters.
34. E.N. posted on 03 Aug 2012, 05:02 0 2
lol you would be the first to comment. But anyway, haven't we established for years now that quality is more important? Let's not pretend that android = apple in terms of app quality. And android users don't really even buy apps as often as iOS users, so we can expect android's stats to be the same or worse.
4. andro. posted on 02 Aug 2012, 09:26 14 1
Those 400,000 are probably all fart apps of wallpaper apps or otherwise stupid apps,the teenage ifan masses already have a fair number of these already downloaded and don't need several of the same apps!
Its fair to say alot of app developers are releasing clones of already existent apps though
5. good2great posted on 02 Aug 2012, 09:34 7 5
so what you're saying is there aren't 400,000 fart apps in the play store?
please man...
be real... you know there are TONS of android apps that you will never download that are stupid, wallpapers, fart apps, and clones of other apps.
like remixfa said above, its about 100k apps that both iOS and android users download.
18. Non_Sequitur posted on 02 Aug 2012, 11:01 8 1
Android has faaaaaaaar less useless fart apps. And who said live wallpapers are stupid? Ohno. I always use live wallpapers and many of my friends do as well.
21. good2great posted on 02 Aug 2012, 11:31 2 4
come on Non_ you seem like a reasonable guy...
this app argument is stupid... apple/google dont create the apps they allow them...
to me its the same... android has 600,000 apps some useful and some stupid as hell
same with apple...
the only difference is apple's apps are well polished they pretty much run like the android version but they look a lil more attractive...
you have to at least agree with that...
22. Non_Sequitur posted on 02 Aug 2012, 11:41 4 1
Yes. I do agree that both platforms have a ton of stupid crap. I'm just saying that I haven't seen as many fart apps on Android as in iOS. I never said Android had less stupid apps. xD
This is one of my favorite 'tard apps.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=shake.to.charg e.battery&hl=en
28. SonyFTW2020 posted on 02 Aug 2012, 15:39 0 0
HAHAHA "fart apps".......lol
20. Non_Sequitur posted on 02 Aug 2012, 11:04 4 3
I used to be an iFan and I was a fart app connoisseur. Makes sense, as I got my iPod Touch when I was like 9 or 10. xD
Ahhhhh. Those were the days.
6. Aeires (unregistered) posted on 02 Aug 2012, 09:34 12 0
How depressing for those developers, especially after having to pay a developer fee to have your app in the store.
On the other hand, goes to show a ton of developers aren't doing their homework. Close to 1900 flashlight apps, didn't anyone developing a flashlight app do a search before taking the time to make another one?
14. remixfa posted on 02 Aug 2012, 10:28 5 1
I think its also going to show the difference between Apple market's vast majority of "pay apps" vs free apps. i bet money those are mostly pay apps unused.
Android is going to have its share of unused apps, but I doubt it will be so large. The majority of android apps are "free & add supported" which makes it more likely someone will DL it just to see what its about. I'm sure there will be a metric ton of apps that were DL and barely used before deletion (if they track that much), but the amount of "never used" apps should be much less.
38. jskrenes posted on 20 Aug 2012, 13:00 1 0
Maybe it's relatively easy to generate the code for a flashlight app, so a developer might try their hand at writing a flashlight code before a new app. But then it would make more sense to have thousands of Android flashlight apps than to pay a dev fee to Apple.
8. Fallout09 posted on 02 Aug 2012, 09:52 3 0
For me, I try download as many apps of a particular type and test them all out.... You would be surprised how many higher rated apps are inferior to one that has yet to be downloaded or rated.
10. snowgator posted on 02 Aug 2012, 10:06 1 0
It is kinda fun to kick around apps, try them out, compare them. But most people do not do that. They just download what every other user they know downloads, or whatever shows up first on their search when they need something.
I wanted a Bill pay system on my Focus S, and most of the higher rated ones were pay apps with a small, very limited trial. So of course I pick one of the higher rated ones. It is just human nature.
36. downphoenix posted on 03 Aug 2012, 14:25 0 0
Amen to this. A good example is Instagram, what a bad app that is unbelievably popular. Pixlr-o-matic is 10 times better, but has 1/10th the downloads.
9. snowgator posted on 02 Aug 2012, 10:02 2 0
The question is:
How many in the other stores are downloaded VS. completely ignored? Does a developer have a better chance gambling on a smaller, still developing ecosystem (WP, BB10, one of the other open source OS's)?
Most of everyone on this site have already realized that app development is a hard, long sell.
15. remixfa posted on 02 Aug 2012, 10:30 3 1
developers in smaller newer ecosystems like WP7 have a much higher chance of having a high download % for a new/unknown app than on a super saturated OS like iOS or even Android. Large developers with name recognition like Rovio or EA obviously have an advantage on the big guys, but the small developers have better chances in smaller markets. Less choices in similar apps mean more likely purchases/downloads.
11. gwuhua1984 posted on 02 Aug 2012, 10:21 4 1
LOL, who's that guy that was saying quantity over quality again?
25. gallitoking posted on 02 Aug 2012, 13:11 2 4
well good luck playing Angry Ninjas.... which I am sure was downloaded at least once.. yes there are more garbage apps in the Google store that get downloaded at least once.. yes good thing to brag about huh..
27. gwuhua1984 posted on 02 Aug 2012, 14:33 2 0
Angry Ninja is a great game... what are you trying to say? Angry Ninja is a garbage app?
19. Roomaku posted on 02 Aug 2012, 11:02 1 0
Just wait until the Android statistics come out, and Blackberry don't think iOS is the only one that has a huge number of ignored apps.
29. tedkord posted on 02 Aug 2012, 16:16 0 0
Did anyone really think that either the App Store or the Play Store had over a half million unique apps? There are probably less than a thousand totally unique in each. There are probably hundreds of music players, hundreds of e-book readers, etc...most people download one of each, maybe a couple to try out.
If you filter out the useless apps, then filter out the apps that duplicate what the top sellers do, and your not left with many.
31. InspectorGadget80 posted on 02 Aug 2012, 18:59 0 0
Then how can they have 1 million downloads?
32. tumchaaditya posted on 02 Aug 2012, 23:17 1 0
I always had a feeling that it would be so.
All the app stores, may it be android iOS or windows phone, show only the popular apps over and over again.
It would be excruciatingly difficult to browse almost half of the apps in aforementioned app stores simply because they don't show up anywhere..
In my opinion, about 80% of the apps in all these app stores don't see 4 digit download figures.
People need to come up with new app ideas rather than just apps..
A thousand apps having the exact same purpose is just pointless...
39. ypchoudary posted on 31 Aug 2012, 17:21 0 0
This is not surprising considering that a lot app developers seem to think when you build an app people will automatically find the app and get downloads.
Believe it or not this is the biggest reason for the lack of downloads for most apps. The app developer community needs to completely change the way they think about marketing their apps. You cannot just create an app and expect magic to happen.
I am surprised that a huge number of developers do not take advantage of free and paid resources which can help them market their app and start making some serious money.
Here is a free resource which app developers should definitely join:http://www.facebook.com/groups/appentrepreneurs/
And here is a paid resource which looks very promising:http://www.udemy.com/become-an-app-marketing-expert/
40. ari6666666 posted on 15 Sep 2012, 08:31 0 0
So what? Just because they've never been used doesn't mean they don't exist. People can use them they just choose not too.
