When Apple announced that the App Store officially passed the 100,000 apps bar I think there were mainly two reactions:
1. It's amazing and I love Apple
2. 100,000? Well most of them suck any way (any combination thereof is also plausible).
It's indeed a good comment, what populates those virtual shelves? If there are 20,000 unused fart applications and 40,000 ebooks that nobody reads then 100,000 apps doesn't seem that impressive anymore.
Fortunately the folks at AppsFire got some data that shows the reality is tough.
Indeed, only 20% of the apps present on the App Store drag attention to them. There is only a handful of applications that can reach the holly 50% of iPhones populated (let's guess... Facebook, Shazam etc.) and the 1000th app reaches out to only 1.76% of users (it still represents like a million iPhones).
This "long tail" effect reinforces the idea that good marketing is the key to an apps success and that websites like AppAdvice.com become more essential in getting information about what's going on.
Another problem that Apple should start getting concerned about is something consumer behavioral theorists call "overchoice". You know, like when you're in front of a shelf and the amount of effort it takes to choose between 50 similar products is greater than the actual benefit it brings you. It's information overload. How can you help but to get frustrated?! Well like I said before, this is why sites like AppAdvice.com are here. So don't get frustrated, we're here to help!
[via AppsFire]
