Original App Store research, computed from public metadata on 1,102,002 apps (as of 15 Nov 2026) and written to a published standard.

Latest study 6 Nov 2026 · Methodology →

Featured investigation · Data study

How Many Devices Does an App Really Support?

Device compatibility ranges from one iPhone model to dozens of devices — and the spread tracks price and quality in surprising ways.

Dor Bass Published 6 Nov 2026 · 8 min read

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Apps by device count supported

1 26
2 670
3 9
4 882
5 921
6 2
15 1
30 2

From “How Many Devices Does an App Really Support?” · figures computed 6 Nov 2026

Written analysis · newest first

Latest studies

All 26 studies →

Study · Published 4 Nov 2026 · 8 min read

Do App Ratings Change Over Time?

0.9 Developer Tools, most volatile category

Star ratings aren't frozen in time — track how far an app's average score swings across its life, and which categories ride the wildest waves.

Developer Tools just won't sit still. Ratings there swing by 0.9 stars on average, the biggest movement of any category in this study. Games is the opposite story, barely budging at 0.2, the steadiest category in the whole dataset, which draws from 526,313 apps. Price turns out to be a red herring: paid apps swing 0.4 and free apps swing 0.4, identical.

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Study · Published 2 Nov 2026 · 9 min read

Are App Store Apps Getting More Mature?

Has the App Store quietly aged up, skewing toward mature content ratings as the years pass?
Study · Published 28 Oct 2026 · 10 min read

Which Countries Pay for Apps? Free vs Paid by Country

Free almost everywhere, but a handful of countries still pay for their top apps — and wealth isn't the only reason why.
Study · Published 23 Oct 2026 · 7 min read

Do Higher Version Numbers Mean Better Apps?

Does a bigger major version number actually mean a better, longer-lived app — or just a vanity metric?
Study · Published 9 Sep 2026 · 8 min read

Why Do App Prices End in .99?

Charm pricing is supposed to be universal, but the App Store's love of the .99 ending is wildly uneven across currencies, categories, and eras.

Written explainers

Field guides

All guides →

Field guide · Published 18 Jul 2026 · 6 min read

Do 4.8-Star Apps Update Faster Than 4.5-Star Apps?

Star ratings tempt you to assume 4.8-star apps update faster than 4.5-star ones. Picking by rating alone can mean months without the fix you actually need.
Field guide · Published 17 Jul 2026 · 7 min read

Meowdoku's 72-Hour Rating Record: What That Number Means

Is Meowdoku's 72-hour rating record real growth or a reset counter? It depends on version scoping and review timing, and getting it wrong misjudges the hype.
Field guide · Published 17 Jul 2026 · 7 min read

Why Apps From 2012-2015 Vanish While Older Ones Survive

Most apps from 2012-2015 vanished due to Apple's 64-bit cutoff, but only if developers never rebuilt them. Here's how to check if yours is gone for good.

How this site is made

Every study starts from figures we compute across the whole index. A language model drafts the analysis against those figures, and Dor Bass reviews it before it publishes. Field guides follow the same process.

The rankings and figures in the next section are different: they are computed automatically, not written, and any commentary on them is labelled machine-drafted.

Editorial standards → Corrections log →

Editor & lead analyst

Dor Bass

Writes the studies, sets the editorial standards behind every analysis, and maintains the measurement methodology.

Editorial standards → Data sources → About the editor →

The data behind the research

Computed automatically · not written

Computed automatically from public App Store metadata on 1,102,002 apps (as of 15 Nov 2026), and recomputed on a schedule. Every figure is dated. Downloads, revenue and retention are not visible to us, so we name them and do not estimate them.

Apps indexed: 1,102,002
Publishers: 381,019
Reviews analysed: 1,960,411
Price changes · 30d: 4,024