25 billion app downloads, Who cares
It was big news this week when Apple’s App Store hit yet another milestone. This time, 25 billion downloads. No doubt, that’s a lot of downloads. Not only that, with new iOS devices released each year, that number is growing more and more rapidly as each day goes by.
What happens when you compare that to the number of people on the planet, a number that just crossed 7 billion last year? What about the number of iOS devices, which was just announced to be 315 million?
That’s 3.5 apps downloaded for every person on the planet.
or that’s 80 apps per device sold.
So why are there so many downloads?
Easy. Most apps suck.
Can you tell someone that you have 80 quality apps on your iPhone?
Look at most devices these days. There are a handful of quality apps, the staples that everyone can have and use. The Facebook, Skype, Dropbox, and Twitters of the app space.
Then you have the quality niche apps. In the travel space it might be Tripadvisor. In games it would be Osmos, in food it’s Yelp, and in photography, Instagram.
What you have left is mostly garbage. For every gold nugget app you can stumble upon in the app store, or get a quality recommend for, there are 10 or 20 installed that either sit around on your device wasting space, or getting uninstalled right after installation.
So what needs to happen?
1) App Store Experience Must Change
To avoid wasting time finding out what apps are quality the idea of an app store needs to change. It’s just too hard to find good apps. Not only that, but the ratings system used is broken. People complain that an app doesn’t work, and give it one star, when it is often their own device causing the issue.
2) Developers Need To Step Up Their Game
Developing for mobile is hot, not to mention big business these days. If you’re a developer, don’t put up your app until it is ready for the world to see, and don’t let it sit there waiting for updates for when new devices come out. Quality over quantity. It’s hard enough trying to get people to pay for quality apps as it is.
So in the end, 25 billion downloads means little more than an easy way to get cheap and free press. Looks like Apple just checkmated me there.
One of the editors of Too Many Adapters, Dustin just can’t get enough travel or technology.
When not directly feeding his above insatiable habits, you can probably find him at some far away ice cream shop taking pictures and tweeting of all the flavors to jealous followers. That, or on top of a mountain somewhere shooting panoramas with his DSLR.
I fully agree. Most apps, well maybe not sux, but are not overly useful. I rely on maybe half a dozen every day, maybe the same number again less frequently, out of the I don’t know how many on my phone.