The new study claims that 650000 apps hosted in the app store have not been updated in more than two years, while the Google play store has 869000 such "abandoned" apps. Apple recently announced that it would remove apps that had not been updated for some time, and then extended the deadline Now, a research company has investigated the app store and Google play store to see how many applications have not been updated for a long time
Pixelate research company took a snapshot of the situation of the two stores on March 31, 2022. If an application has not been updated for more than two years, it will be described as abandoned. If the application is not updated for five years or more, the company calls it "completely obsolete".
Data show that 33% of all applications have not been updated in two years or more, and 11% of them, that is, more than 500000, have not been updated in more than four years.
About 314000 apps were last updated in five years or more. Among them, 58%, or 184000, are in the app store, while 130000 are in the Google play store.
It turns out that some categories of applications are more likely to be abandoned. In terms of quantity, the game is led by 50000 content categories that have not been updated in the past two years, 44000 educational applications and 31000 reference applications.
Similarly, the applications most likely to be updated are divided into specific categories. In terms of quantity, financial applications are the most likely, with 69000 updated in the past six months.
Since September 30, 2021, about 72000 shopping apps have also been updated. And 64000 health apps have been updated since then.
Pixalate said there was a clear "positive link" between updates to applications and how often they were downloaded. The company reported that 84% of the apps with more than 100 million downloads were updated in the past six months.
Not updating an application does not necessarily mean it has been abandoned. Maybe the app doesn't need to be updated.
Apple launched a private "nutrition label" in December 2020 and asked developers to update their application description with this information. Applications that fail to meet the minimum download threshold within the 12-month rolling period and are not updated within three years will be cleared from the app store, although the company did not clarify the minimum time threshold.
Apple said it did so to provide users with a better app store experience. By removing old, obsolete, or obsolete applications, it hopes to provide better discoverability for actively maintained applications.
In addition, it ensures that applications comply with the security and privacy guidelines of the app store, which Apple notes are "evolving".
The company also wants these applications to meet a certain level of quality. The company has made it clear that all applications should be able to run on all modern screen sizes, SDKs, APIs and other functions provided in IOS and MacOS ecosystems.
However, if an application has been downloaded by the user, it will not be deleted from the user's device or account even if it is removed from the app store.
It's not clear what's the standard for clearing apps from the Google store.