The total number of apps in Apple’s App Store declined for the first time last year, according to new data from the analytics company Appfigures.
Over the course of the year, the number of apps in the store declined from 2.2 million to 2.1 million, marking the first time the store had fewer apps at the end of the year than it did in the beginning.
The reason for that change is likely Apple’s decision to remove older apps from the store that were not being updated regularly, The Verge notes.
Last year, Apple removed apps that were not built on 64-bit architecture, something necessary for them to work on newer iPhone models.
That meant that a number of abandoned apps were cleared out from the store, including past favorites such as Flappy Bird. Apple also removed a number of other low-quality apps from the App Store in 2017, including those that were clones of other apps that already existed in the store.
However, the removal of old apps wasn’t the only reason for the decline. Appfigures notes that just 755,000 apps were released for iOS last year, a 29% drop from 2016. In contrast, 1.5 million apps were released for Android last year, marking a 17% year-over-year increase.
