THE APP STORE: 6 Years Later … a Hard Game and GETTING HARDER

THE APP STORE: 6 Years Later … a Hard Game and GETTING HARDER

Adapted from http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/10/the-app-store-six-years-later/

Apple‘s App Store turns six today, and now offers consumers over 1.2 million apps, which have been downloaded 75 billion times, according to the most recent official data shared by the company.

But the business can sometimes be tough for app developers, and new numbers out this morning from two different analytics companies help prove this point. More than 21 percent of the apps that entered the App Store since its debut are now “dead,” notes one firm, while another is seeing a trend it calls “app burnout” now emerging.

Dead Apps & Burnout

Unlike the days of boxed software, app developers today don’t have to just make sales. They have to find and retain loyal users, keep engagement high, consider a variety of revenue models including also mobile advertising and in-app purchases, and work to maintain a highly ranked position in the App Store’s charts, which are managed by sometimes ...