[aapl]

Pure speculation: maybe these apps are actually ebooks or some other kind of static content just packaged as an app and they are generated by an automatic or a semi-automatic process. Assuming that the article is correct, of course.

[mikeash]

The article is not correct. The original source says these apps get 0-10 downloads per day. So they could be getting over three thousand downloads a year and still fall into the category that the article says has "never been downloaded."