Apple's 100,000 apps fail to impress

Apple has for long been boasting about their extensive collection of available applications on the App Store, and this week they proudly announced that they have reached the 100,000 mark. But an impressive number does not account for the real state of affairs.

The real numbers
The grand number of 100,000 might seem significant, but at the same time it is unnecessary. Even though Apple strictly monitors the quality of applications in its store, most of them have not been huge successes in the market, or amongst users.

A recent study has shown that only about 20 percent of all applications ever get used by people even a few times.

The same study also concluded that if your application is not in the top 1 percent in the store, there are chances that it will not be downloaded on more than 1.67 percent of all iPhones, and iPods.

Is the increase real?
The numbers are untrue when one considers the useless applications that are a part of the App Store. Companies are now turning single books into applications.

Unlike Amazon's Kindle, one application cannot run many books, and each book has come out with its own, individual application. The App Store has around 10 “War and Peace” application costing not more than $.99.

A survey done by AppsFire, an application tracking and sharing service meant for iPhone users, revealed that out of the 100,000 applications in Apple's store, only a handful are being actively used.

The 1000th application on the store is being used by a minuscule number of 1.76 customers, while the 2000th application has a negligible number of users.

Thus, one can safely assume that 100,000 or not, most of the applications are just gathering dust in the App Store.

Dealing with competition
Apple has had problem acquiring applications for their Mac for years now. Microsoft's Windows never faced it since every application is first made for the PC.

Apple was thus the target of Microsoft's ridicule, and had always contented the claim by saying that the quality of application and what they do is what matters, not the numbers. Looks like Apple has conveniently forgotten their “quality over quantity” philosophy.

On the other hand, Apple's strong contender Motorola Droid might be lagging behind in the number of applications, but the same could be more useful for customers.

Thus, even though Apple's marketing strategy might focus on the big numbers, recent findings have surely burst their bubble a bit, and given the Droid that extra lift.