After smashing through the 10,000 app mark back in November and 15,000 as of Apple’s Q4 earnings call, it appears that the App Store has breezed on through to 20,000 apps. Apptism, an iPhone app monitoring site which updates their tally each hour, puts the current count at 20,410.
Apple has yet to comment, though we’d expect an official acknowledgment of this landmark to come sometime soon.
It’s quite impressive, but also a bit worrying. It took roughly 6 months to go from 0 to 10,000 applications, and then less than 2 months to double that. However, it should be noted (and it can be seen with a quick browse through Apptism’s catalog) that a very significant portion of these applications are “Lite” (free) versions of premium counterparts. Should these watered down, sample sized releases be counted individually?
With all of these apps filling the market, it’s getting a bit tough to hunt out the good stuff beyond the Top 10 that Apple provides. Got an obscure favorite? Let us know what it is in the comments.
[Via MacWorld]
I’d mention that about 5% are really dead or suspenden now. Another website, appshopper.com, tracks 19700 active apps for iPhone
I’ve been developing a couple of apps in my spare time, simple, but useful. And because of this I spend quite a bit of time browsing through the listings (you know, checking for competition, rankings, etc).
But I have to say that AT LEAST half of the apps out there are what I’d like to classify as “crapware”: Applications that are so simple by itself already (ie. “email bridal party”) and then cut and pasted into 10’s of varieties by the author (“email golf buddies”, “email family”, etc etc). It’s hard to stand out when there is a lot of crapware out there.