The “‘abandoned apps” crackdown last month announced by Apple – and a similar move by Google – could see a total of 1.5 million apps removed across the two app stores.
That would, according to a new report, amount to around a third of all available apps …
Background
Apple’s policing of abandoned apps – those which haven’t been updated for a long time – is not new. The company previously announced a similar purge back in 2016, though that one appeared to be focused on apps that were no longer fully functional with current devices
That saw almost 50,000 apps removed.
Apple made its latest announcement last month.
Developers complained that this could see the removal of apps that remained fully functional, leading Apple to be more explicit about its removal criteria, as well as giving developers more time to comply.
The company also stressed that this was not a new policy; it was simply alerting developers to an existing policy.
Impact of abandoned apps crackdown
CNET reports that Pixalate used analytics data to estimate the number of apps liable to be culled.
We noted earlier in the year that we’re also seeing many Apple Watch apps disappear – though in that case it is developers deciding that they are no longer worth the effort of maintaining them.
I expressed my own view at the time that this was neither surprising nor worrying.
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