Apple-Funded Study on Success of Third-Party Apps
Today, economists at Analysis Group published a new report on the proliferation of third-party apps on the App Store, with new insights into how third-party apps perform in categories ranging from maps to music streaming, among others. The report finds that third-party apps experience broad regional and global success on the App Store, demonstrating the breadth of opportunity for developers and the wide range of choice available to consumers around the world.
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The report analyzes apps from Apple and third-party developers across many popular app types, breaking down regional and global top performers. It also highlights just how many channels developers now have to distribute their apps — from mobile platforms, to PCs, to video game consoles.
So much competition, and they didn’t even mention the sweet solution.
Apple makes available a number of tools and core technologies to all developers to help them create innovative apps, including more than 250,000 software development building blocks called APIs.
Intellectual property for which they must be compensated.
Via Juli Clover:
The second part of the study focuses on the growth of the App Store over time (there are now 1.8 million apps), 99.9 percent of which are third-party apps as the study is quick to point out that Apple has just 60 apps that are competing with third-party apps.
The final part of the study focuses on the breadth of third-party apps that are available as alternatives to Apple-created apps, and it points out that for many categories like social networks, food, travel planning, and dating services, third-party apps are the only option as Apple does not compete in these categories. It also points out that across most app types, Apple’s apps are “eclipsed in popularity and account for a relatively small share of usage.”
Well that clearly does not add up. Spotify’s share in Japan cannot be “0.4 times greater” than Apple’s 55%.
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Apple may have commissioned this study, but it does not appear to have done its authors any favours in getting them proprietary real-world metrics.
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Does a combination of ad network partnerships and a sneaky consumption utility mean it is able to provide reliable figures on the use of, say, Messages or the Phone app? I find it hard to believe this is anything more than a best guess.
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It sure is an interesting time for technology policy at government and platform levels. All the findings in this report are the result of choices made primarily by Apple in its design of iOS and the App Store. It seems there is healthy competition in some categories of apps and in some regions. But this report is not comprehensive. Third-party apps have limitations Apple’s own versions do not, and there are many other categories where Apple’s entrant likely pulls ahead — browsers would be an especially interesting case because, although it is one of two types of app where you can set a system-level default on iOS, any third-party browser will still use Apple’s rendering engine.
Apple: if this huge competitive advantage didn’t exist in the first place, you would never need a study to point out that 60 apps is not a lot compared to 1.8 million.
It is a such pointless and insulting study, because at any time Apple can squash any app by making their own version, that is better, and is only better because it can do things Apple won’t allow the third party version to do.
Previously:
- Tim Cook Attacks Sideloading in Privacy Keynote
- Another Apple-Funded App Store Study
- iOS Default Apps and Competing With Built-in Apps
- How Apple Uses Its App Store to Copy the Best Ideas
- AppAdvice Removed From the App Store (in 2015)
- Apple Apps in App Store Search Results
- App Store Competition
I really like the first picture in this report.
It illustrates so well how icons on iOS have no real identity and how they all look the same
Finding the Disney+ icon requires to check a bunch of blue and dark blue icons for instance.