Apple releases a report it commissioned from Analysis Group, showing that the company's iOS apps “are rarely the most popular app of a particular type”
Apple today shared a new App Store study that it commissioned from economists at Analysis Group, with the report highlighting …
MacRumorsJuli Clover
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's new commissioned study enters a long-running dispute over whether the App Store advantages its own software. A 2019 analysis found Apple's apps leading in more than 60% of test searches, including a highly rated-positioned Podcasts app despite weak user feedback; Apple had also hired economists to defend its commission practices.
The company has previously used Analysis Group research to emphasize the App Store's economic reach. This report instead focuses on category popularity, giving Apple a narrower empirical answer to claims that default platform distribution necessarily translates into category leadership.
Third-party iOS developers gain Apple-backed evidence that the company's apps are not generally the leading category apps, while the report does not resolve questions about search placement or preinstallation.
Second-order effects
Debate over App Store power shifts toward competing measures—category popularity, search ranking, and default use—rather than a single measure of Apple’s advantage.
Apple's existing defense of App Store commissions, supported by its economist hiring, is reinforced by a broader argument that the platform faces meaningful app-level competition.
Third-order effects
Platform-policy disputes increasingly turn on the metrics chosen to define self-preferencing: popularity data can support Apple while search-result evidence supports critics.
If commissioned research becomes a standard part of platform advocacy, regulators and developers will place greater weight on independently reproducible measures of ranking, defaults, and user adoption.
The trend: App-store competition debates are moving from broad allegations of platform advantage toward contested evidence about how distribution, rankings, and user choice interact.
@reneritchie Do we buy the dichotomy though? Make it scary to be able to sideload, that's fine. Some small percent of users will go through with it. The majority still get the locked down experience. Or am I wrong, and Billy unlocking his phone for side loads degrades my experien…
Interesting Apple lobbying report giving (3rd party estimates for) its market share in music and maps. On iOS. https://www.apple.com/... https://twitter.com/...
“Apple releases a report it commissioned from economists showing that its own apps are rarely the most popular app of a particular type in the App Store” Right. That's why you artificially boosted them in search results.
the most honest apple has ever been about TV+ usage [screen capture showing Netflix being 17X bigger than TV+ in the US, Prime Video being 407X times bigger in Japan, etc.]
@reneritchie Imagine a world where the App Store has to actually compete for developer attention. Imagine what amazing things will be made available to users now that a whole new class of developers and business models can be offered to them.
Some argue the iPhone is so mainstream, data-rich, and critical it has to be an open computing platform. Others, that it's so mainstream, data-rich, and critical, it has to be a locked down console First want everything to be a PC, second want at least one option that's not?
@Skyoptika They did! We had Nokia, webOS, BlackBerry, Windows, Android, iOS... all with very different policies The “market” collapsed them down to a duopoly...
Also, many super popular apps could move outside the App Store, like the Facebook or Google suite, Epic for sure, which could put enormous pressure on people to open side-loading. Console model prevents that timeline on iOS, but you can switch to Android. Choice is a perspective.…
I am actually a long-time proponent of Gatekeeper on iOS. I don't think it'll solve for 90% of what fetishists think it will, and it will cause additional burdens for non-nerds But mostly I believe I'm not always right or have every perspective so I like to provoke discussion :) …
Apple apps are less popular than third-party apps, according to a report from https://data.ai/ (formerly App Annie), who were contracted by Apple. Still, it comes amid lots of international pressure + laws for fairer App Store practices. https://www.cnet.com/...