The Apple App Store shrank for the first time in 2017, according to a new report from Appfigures, a reporting platform for mobile app developers. Google Play grew 30% last year to more than 3.6 million apps.
At the end of 2017 there were roughly 2.1 million iOS apps available in the App Store, a decrease of 5% when compared to the 2.2 million apps that were available in the beginning of the year. The decline is a “result of stricter enforcement of Apple’s review guidelines, as well as a technical change that eliminated many old apps that were not updated to support 64-bit architecture,” according to Appfigures.
What’s more, iOS developers took their time releasing just 755,000 new apps in 2017. That’s a 29% decline — the first drop since the App Store launched in 2008.
