It’s in the iOS App Store one of the most profitable business units for Apple. Looking back, it’s surprising that the original plans for the iPhone didn’t include the use of apps (the first iPhone didn’t even have an App Store). Instead, Apple has committed to using HTML5 websites and that these use local device storage. A model that may make sense in certain cases, but not very practical or not at all practical in others.

fortunately It didn’t take long for them to realize their mistake., so the App Store debuted on the second-generation iPhone, the 3G, which was the model in which Apple’s other key smartphone feature, geolocation, also arrived since then (but that’s another story). I imagine more than one person in Cupertino got a light bulb when they thought of the huge revenue potential this could translate into given the potential demand for smartphone apps. 2008 was a very interesting year in terms of digital software business, as it was also chosen by Valve to enter this market with Steam, which until then was a platform dedicated exclusively to its own titles.

Today, in-app purchases, subscriptions and purchases in the application They are a really juicy business and that Apple protects it tooth and naildespite the fact that laws and regulations around the world are pushing those from Cupertino to open up iOS to third-party stores and payment systems, which could start coming as early as next September when iOS 17 debuts, although it’s possible that it will only do so in Europe… at least until the company’s appeals against the punishment of its court clash with Epic Games are resolved.

The iOS App Store has also faced numerous controversies over the years due to the way Apple manages it, much of it related to its treatment of developers. As a result, the company lost the lawsuit in August 2021 and certain liabilities were imposed as a result, including the following:

• an apple will create annual transparency report based on App Store datawhich will provide meaningful statistics about the app review process, including the number of apps rejected for various reasons, the number of disabled customer and developer accounts, objective data on queries and search results, and the number of apps removed from the App Store.

Well, as we can see in Apple’s legal information section (only English version at the moment, yes), Apple has finally released its first iOS App Store transparency report. The report, which, although released in response to a US court decision, shows global data, which makes it much more interesting. It’s not particularly comprehensive, yes, in Cupertino they decided to solve it with a PDF of only two pages, yes, full of interesting data.

The report contains data for the year 2022, and as we can read, the number of applications submitted for review to the iOS App Store was 6,101,913, although at this point Apple qualifies that an application can be submitted multiple times, because either to publish a new version or to be re- submitted for review if originally rejected and the changes requested by Apple have been made. Something that happens quite regularly, actually, because the number of applications rejected during 2022 was 1,679,694this means that about 30% of the shipments were rejected.

The report also reveals interesting data about government actions in relation to App Store apps, more specifically requests by various governments to remove apps. Overall, according to Apple’s transparency report In this regard, 1,474 applications were submitted, of which 1,435 (97%) came from the Chinese administrationfollowed by India, Pakistan, Russia and Turkey with 14, 10, 7 and 2, respectively.

There is some other very interesting data that I summarize below, but first, for context, let’s remember that a week is 604,800 seconds long. To the right of each weekly data, I will add its volume per second:

• Average weekly App Store visitors: 656,739,889 (1,085.87 per second)
• Average number of apps downloaded per week: 747,873,877 (1,236.56 per second)
• Weekly average of automatic updates: 40,876,798,492 (67,587.29 per second)
• Weekly average of manual updates: 512,545,816 (847.46/s)