App Store Data Studies
Original research from our own index of the App Store. Each study takes a real question, computes the answer across 1,063,218 apps (as of 30 Oct 2026), and explains what it means — no guesswork, no invented numbers.
These are not opinion pieces or roundups. Every figure below is computed directly from the App Store metadata we track and refreshes as the data does. Where a finding touches one of our live record boards or tools, we link straight to it so you can dig into the underlying apps yourself.
Free almost everywhere, but a handful of countries still pay for their top apps — and wealth isn't the only reason why.
Some categories run on a handful of juggernauts while others spread success evenly — the percentile data reveals which.
Is the App Store quietly getting more mature, one age rating at a time?
How many preview images does it take to sell an app today — and does piling on more actually buy a better rating?
Does a bigger major version number actually mean a better, longer-lived app — or just a vanity metric?
App reviews map a different world than app counts do—see which countries actually talk back, and how generously.
Some nations rave, others rage — mapping which countries rate apps highest, harshest, and most erratically.
Does speaking more languages actually win an app more countries' charts — or is reach really about something else?
Which countries punch above their weight in the App Store's charts, once you divide by how many people actually live there?
Apple's rating counts cluster suspiciously often on round numbers, hinting at how the Store actually reports popularity.
Some apps quietly rule dozens of charts at once — how concentrated is record-holding at the individual app level?
In every category, a tiny sliver of apps hoards almost all the ratings — here's how wide that gap really is.
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.
We cross top-chart apps' language counts with each country's internet penetration and GDP per capita to see if connectivity buys localization.
We size up every publisher's app portfolio to see if churning out more apps comes at the cost of ratings.
Some App Store leaderboards flip constantly while others barely budge — we tracked every dethroning on record.
Repeated snapshots reveal which apps and categories are actually gaining ratings fastest — not just which are biggest.
A tiny sliver of publishers controls a staggering share of all App Store ratings ever logged.
We cross GDP per capita and internet penetration against what tops each country's charts and how it's priced.
Achievements and leaderboards were once every game's calling card — who still bothers to wire them up?
Does the day of the week an app is born or updated quietly shape its fate on the App Store?
Beyond star ratings: which app categories are winning back users, and which are quietly losing them.
Content ratings quietly shape price, popularity, and marketing effort across the App Store.
Tracking every recorded price move on the App Store reveals who cuts, who hikes, and when they strike.
Some say it in a sentence; others write to the 4,000-character limit. What description length reveals.
Seven in ten apps ship iPad screenshots. Which ones do not, and what that says about the tablet.
The comfortable assumption is that paying buys a better app. The ratings say otherwise.
How much of the App Store is actively maintained, and how big the abandoned tail really is.
English is in nine of ten apps. For the world's other billions of speakers, the store looks very different.
Behind every age rating is a list of specific warnings — violence, gambling, mature themes. Here is what the store is really flagging.
The US and UK charts are near-clones. Others share almost nothing. We measured the App Store's borders.
We sorted thousands of app icons by colour. One hue dominates every home screen — and it is not close.
The typical app still runs on an iPhone from years ago. Minimum-iOS requirements, translated into the actual iPhones they rule out.
Most apps fill over half their ten screenshot slots. The extremes are the real tell.
The store is a mix of ancient survivors and this year's newcomers. Here is the age map.
What the whole App Store reveals about who pays, how much, and where the money hides.
Almost every app is "4.5 stars." The rating count is where the truth is.
Most apps are quietly abandoned. Here is how long they survive, and how many still ship.
The vast majority of developers ship exactly one app. A tiny few ship hundreds.
Over half of all apps speak only one language. A minority are built for the world.
How heavy apps have become, which categories bloat, and the gigabyte club.
How the App Store splits by age rating, and which categories skew grown-up.
Which categories are the biggest, the best rated, the priciest, and the most crowded.
Showing 43 studies, newest first. “Published” is when a study first went live; its figures then recompute as the index grows, shown as “figures updated”. Every study states its sample, its window, and what it cannot show.