According to a new report from Appfigures, the App Store get smaller in 2017, declining from 2.2 million apps to 2.1 million. That’s the first time in a decade that the App Store has shrunk. At the same time, Google play grew 30 percent, and now has 3.6 million apps.
In 2016, Apple warned the mobile development industry that it would be cleaning house, getting rid of clones, spam apps and other apps that didn’t meet its guidelines, but that wasn’t the only reason the number of apps in the App Store went down. New iOS app submissions declined 29 percent, while new Android app submission rose 17 percent.
Another interesting tidbit from the report: 24 percent of iOS apps are created with non-native tools, while only 10 percent of Android apps use non-native mobile development tooling.
