AppWanderer

Original App Store research, computed from public metadata on 1,083,490 apps (as of 9 Nov 2026) and written to a published standard.

Latest study 6 Nov 2026 · Methodology →

Featured investigation · Data study

The Screenshot Arms Race

How many preview images does it take to sell an app today — and does piling on more actually buy a better rating?

Dor Bass Published 23 Oct 2026 · 7 min read
Read the full study →
Average screenshot count by category
  1. Games 5.3
  2. Education 5.4
  3. Utilities 4.8
  4. Business 5
  5. Lifestyle 5.1
  6. Health & Fitness 5.5
  7. Productivity 5.3
  8. Finance 5.6

From “The Screenshot Arms Race” · figures computed 23 Oct 2026

Written analysis · newest first

Latest studies

All 45 studies →

Study · Published 6 Nov 2026 · 8 min read

How Many Devices Does an App Really Support?

36.5% of the 2,521-app device cut supports exactly 5 devices

Device compatibility ranges from one iPhone model to dozens of devices — and the spread tracks price and quality in surprising ways.

Device compatibility on the App Store follows a pattern, not a free-for-all. Among the apps with usable device-count data, most cluster tightly at just 4 or 5 supported devices, and the long-term trend shows that range getting narrower over the past decade instead of wider.

Read the study →

  1. Study · Published 4 Nov 2026 · 6 min read

    The Rating Rollercoaster

    Star ratings aren't frozen in time — track how far an app's average score swings across its life, and which categories ride the wildest waves.

  2. Study · Published 2 Nov 2026 · 9 min read

    The Maturity Drift

    Has the App Store quietly aged up, skewing toward mature content ratings as the years pass?

  3. Study · Published 30 Oct 2026 · 8 min read

    The Warning Label Effect

    Apps pile on content advisories to cover themselves legally — but does more fine print mean worse ratings?

  4. Study · Published 28 Oct 2026 · 10 min read

    The Free Lunch Divide

    Free almost everywhere, but a handful of countries still pay for their top apps — and wealth isn't the only reason why.

Written explainers

Field guides

All guides →

  1. Field guide · Published 5 Aug 2026 · 5 min read

    No App Speaks More Languages Than This One (and It Isn't Google)

    Confusing most languages with best translator costs you real functionality. Here's which app actually leads and why the wrong pick can fail you daily.

  2. Field guide · Published 29 Jul 2026 · 5 min read

    Meowdoku's 72-Hour Rating Record: What the Number Actually Means

    Meowdoku's record 72-hour rating surge reflects prompt frequency and existing user base more than raw popularity.

  3. Field guide · Published 22 Jul 2026 · 5 min read

    Still Running on the Oldest iPhones

    Trivia lists rank apps by their oldest supported iOS, but that number often means the app is abandoned, not working. Trusting it can waste a download.

How this site is made

Every study starts from figures we compute across the whole index. A language model drafts the analysis against those figures, and Dor Bass reviews it before it publishes. Field guides follow the same process.

The rankings and figures in the next section are different: they are computed automatically, not written, and any commentary on them is labelled machine-drafted.

Editorial standards → Corrections log →

Dor Bass
Editor & lead analyst
Dor Bass

Writes the studies, sets the editorial standards behind every analysis, and maintains the measurement methodology.

Editorial standards → Data sources → About the editor →

The data behind the research

Computed automatically · not written

Computed automatically from public App Store metadata on 1,083,490 apps (as of 9 Nov 2026), and recomputed on a schedule. Every figure is dated. Downloads, revenue and retention are not visible to us, so we name them and do not estimate them.

Apps indexed
1,083,490
Publishers
373,242
Reviews analysed
1,905,894
Price changes · 30d
4,548