App Store releases are increasing due to a new gold rush on subscription apps. Review times have gotten longer as the review team at Apple is being spammed.
Most of these apps are rudimentary habit trackers, time management apps etc. so not much creativity, much more recycled ideas. More code != better ideas though.
+160k apps a year, that's only 84% above pre-AI era (safe to say that apps were not routinely built with AI in 2023 yet). Noticeable increase but doesn't feel dramatic, especially since yes, majority of those new apps are low-effort trash like those described in this thread.
Also a lot more clone ideas these days. AI has definitely empowered people to write things from scratch, either as a product to sell or as internal projects inside companies.
End of 2023: 1,870,119 apps
End of 2024: 1,961,596 apps
Now: 2,150,612 apps, after 1.18 years.
+160k apps a year, that's only 84% above pre-AI era (safe to say that apps were not routinely built with AI in 2023 yet). Noticeable increase but doesn't feel dramatic, especially since yes, majority of those new apps are low-effort trash like those described in this thread.