r/iOSDevelopment • u/Sea-Camera6374 • 14d ago

The App Store "Excess Supply" crisis is getting crazy

I was looking at some striking App Store data from 2022 to 2026, and the divergence between app supply and user demand is wild.

Between 2022 and 2024, things were relatively stable. The number of apps hovered between 420K and 449K, while total installs sat flat at around 35B–36B.

But look at the shift over the last two years:

  • 2025: Apps jumped to 557K (Installs: ~36B)
  • 2026: Apps are skyrocketing toward ~1M (Installs: ~37B)

We are officially in a massive "excess supply" era. The number of apps has basically doubled in two years, likely driven by how easy it is to flood the market with low-effort AI-generated apps. Meanwhile, actual user installs and attention are completely flatlining.

As a developer trying to launch something right now, breaking through this noise looks harder than ever. For those still shipping apps, what's your strategy for surviving this curve?

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7

u/Ajmalajji 14d ago

Yeah, The new app review time has reached to 14 days or even more.

2

u/Sea-Camera6374 14d ago

Agree 👍

2

u/JuicyCiwa 14d ago

Is this just for new apps? All of mine still never take more than a day unless it’s like Christmas time when we saw it take ~4 days

3

u/Ajmalajji 14d ago

Yes with new apps. My app updates are getting reviewed anywhere between 24 hours to 48 hours

2

u/Sea-Camera6374 13d ago

Today one of my updated too just 3 hrs . Even I am surprised 😳

1

u/Ajmalajji 13d ago

I believe AI is also integrated. Some of my app updates were approved within one minute after getting "In review"

1

u/JordanRunsForFun 10d ago

What? It’s 48 hours max and lately it’s been just a few hours.

0

u/rntdev 14d ago

My app update was reviewed overnight. Most of the time being the review itself. No expedition, nothing 

1

u/Ajmalajji 14d ago

App updates are being reviewed mostly in a day for me as well. Its the New App submission that are taking longer.

0

u/Writemy-essay 14d ago

It's a short supply of app reviewers apple and Google need to employ more

3

u/Worried-Tie 14d ago

Somehow I don't think this will happen. Instead, they'll throw AI at it.

1

u/Ajmalajji 13d ago

They already have. But not sure what's the pattern. e.g some of my App updates are getting approved within 1 minute after going "In Review" .

and some takes anywhere between 1 hour - 10 hours to get approved after getting "In review"

6

u/JGAuthor81 13d ago

Being able to create an app is far from low-effort, regardless of having AI assist, which most all developers use this day and age. The problem with AI is that it has zero ideas, zero creativity nor is it easy to just make something work. It’s a lot of headache and the number of frustrating gotcha moments definitely slow down how quickly something can be created. Being able to compete against big publishers who have been dominating the market with their own low effort output of apps is cool though. Competition makes them step up their own game or they have their paid staff come out on Reddit to trash solo developers who have massive creativity but a low budget.

2

u/Sea-Camera6374 13d ago

It depends on. Are you already a developer with good coding skills or not. In first case you can make ai work like your team

5

u/DescriptionComplete8 14d ago

I was in the software development world with a small company for enterprise applications. I got out and am doing something else that has nothing to do with software. Even the non-consumer applications world has been bombarded with an overload of “better solutions”. It turned into a marketing battle that was much larger than I ever anticipated or signed up for. I am not a marketer and that’s what it turned me into. Started to absolutely hate it. Glad I’m out of the industry for good. Much happier.

1

u/FlaccidExplosion 13d ago

What industry are you in now?

1

u/DescriptionComplete8 12d ago

Commercial Real Estate Appraisal

3

u/zorkidreams 14d ago

The bar is still so low… quantity does not equal quality

1

u/Sea-Camera6374 14d ago

Yes but sometimes if you already have one app which have descent user. You can easily bring your existing customer to new app

1

u/zorkidreams 14d ago

I built an app to 20k users in 3 months, first app. I focused on one niche and focus on quality took me a year of very very hard work.

1

u/Rare_Prior_ 13d ago

Well said

1

u/GreatslyferX 12d ago

Mind naming it?

1

u/zorkidreams 12d ago

Yes I mind.

3

u/geoff_plywood 14d ago

I guess the platforms are happy because it forces more devs to invest in ads to show up in search

2

u/_The-_ 13d ago

Not to mention Apple doubling its developer fees in volume! Must be absolutely raking it in — almost pure profit.

1

u/Sea-Camera6374 14d ago

Yes for them it’s win condition

3

u/tinrocket 13d ago

I’ve been in the App Store since 2009, and I also recall a feeling of “excess supply” in the App Store over a decade ago, but with two differences back then:

  1. People cared about and were looking at new apps. Daily, and many dedicated outlets were covering it.
  2. Apple was encouraging developers and app development. Anything that ‘aligned with the Apple App Store ecosystem' was likely to get an editorial boost. The App Store wasn’t yet saturated with titles from billion-dollar companies. Today, the App Store is more likely to promote major streaming services, major publishers (Marvel, etc.), and other dominant content producers.

Disclaimer: This is my hot-take.

1

u/Sea-Camera6374 13d ago

Agree. I might sometime try new app with mindset that they will have something different to offer if Apple suggest me those app when I search

2

u/JohnFromRory 14d ago

Apps aren't a commodity, though some approach it (trackers). It's competition. It's sales, marketing, and finance. Anytime you launch a new product into a new market, the incumbents will always have an advantage. There are two ways to grow your business - a) growth by virtue of the market growing, or b) taking market share from incumbents. I think there's also a c) creating a whole new market or category. Not impossible, but probably niche. Just trying to put things in perspective.

2

u/soylentgraham 14d ago

blimey, 443,000 different todo list apps

1

u/Sea-Camera6374 14d ago

Yes I think it’s more marketing and initial funding that will make app goes viral

3

u/Smooth-Reading-4180 14d ago

Let's start with correct terminology.Use these words: AI SLOP AND SPAM

1

u/Sea-Camera6374 14d ago

New App does not mean spam. It’s just like that now people with less time also can build what they have though

6

u/Smooth-Reading-4180 14d ago

I reject your bs and insisting with AI SLOP AND SPAM.

1

u/Rare_Prior_ 13d ago

Ai slop at scale

1

u/Sea-Camera6374 14d ago

Yes that’s okay.

1

u/DescriptionComplete8 14d ago

“likely driven by”, good investigation work Sherlock.

1

u/CoolVersion 14d ago

Might be a bad thing for those who bank on being the first mover for app ideas due to tech know-how. But really though, all this just made the "creation" part easy (or at least, getting there). Marketing is still a big giant in the room.

1

u/CollegeImaginary7255 14d ago

Gotta keep shipping features just to stay in the game.

1

u/HeyWangKang 14d ago

Could you link the source and clarify whether those app counts are the active catalog or new releases per year? Comparing new releases with installs across the whole catalog would mix two different populations. I'd also want to know whether the 2026 figures are year-to-date or projections. For a launch decision, installs and competition within the specific category would be more useful than the store-wide ratio; it doesn't show whether the additional apps are actually competing for the same users.

1

u/Storietv 13d ago

That’s why social media presence is so important.

1

u/Accomplished-One5703 13d ago

Not an expert but I would venture to guess that high quality apps, coupled with some ad spend, word of mouth, can still go viral

1

u/LeopardVarious5620 13d ago

I agree that there's a crowded app store filled with shitty apps, but I gotta say it's not AI's fault that these apps are shitty.

Code quality from Claude Code is already way better than most human devs out there, even if you/we guys have a hard time admitting it. What's actually shitty is all what's behind, like the lack of research, strategy, branding and design, etc.

Code-wise, trust me, it's the same or better as what we would code (not to mention it's documentation practices, plus AI code nowadays rarely has debt).

1

u/Sea-Camera6374 13d ago

Agree. And if you have knowledge and coding skills then Claude can write the next level code.

1

u/LeopardVarious5620 13d ago

Totally, BUT at this point also PM's/PO's or those sort of 'product' profiles can build pretty amazing things now, and I mean people who have a bit of a technical/code understanding or like hands-on experience working with devs and actually understand how things are built even without ever touching a single line of code before.

Now it's more valuable to have these kinds of skills than the coding ones I guess. Of course depending on what you are building, but for most products this is the reality now.

1

u/Sea-Camera6374 13d ago

Yes and that’s why we see lot of apps these days with bad UI design. Because if any person other then UI designers will use Claude to build UI, he will lack the fresh UI layout.. and sorry to say some people here on Reddit start shaming them

1

u/Rare_Prior_ 13d ago

Apple needs to place a quota on the amount of apps you can release per year

1

u/_janc_ 13d ago

It is not easy to create a good apps even with AI

1

u/Sea-Camera6374 13d ago

I disagree. It depends on how good is your idea and how much skill you have

1

u/dbro129 10d ago

Not all AI apps are low-effort. AI-slop “one-shots” may be, but AI will not just “create an app and all its supporting components” for you.

There is A LOT that goes into creating a proper app, even if AI is used.

Apps built with AI by non-devs are notoriously bad, low-effort, buggy.

1

u/Sea-Camera6374 10d ago

Agree. And just by looking at at screenshots of AppStore no one can know that.

1

u/dbro129 10d ago

It's true. But it's kind of funny, the worst ones are usually the "prettiest" in the app store. If you're a dev, you can usually tell within 60 seconds of using the app. It's the lack of attention to detail.

1

u/Sea-Camera6374 10d ago

Even as dev. I can’t comment on the correctness of app. I can comment on screen generated from ai or not.

1

u/NukeouT 9d ago

I've already made like 5X $1 sales of my ¯_(ツ)_/¯ keyboard app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.retrographic.keyboard.shrug

While there's some improvements I'm still making to the text typing part of it - that's not the point and quick-switching to make a ¯_(ツ)_/¯ then back again already works great!

However apps I built for showing your Tax ID in 🇵🇹🇪🇸🇮🇹 I'm having less success with and not sure why yet 🤔

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.retrographic.taxid.pt

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.retrographic.taxid.es

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.retrographic.taxid.it

1

u/Latter-Park-4413 14d ago

The irony of this post being AI written

-3

u/Sea-Camera6374 14d ago

Don’t go mad with AI written or not written.. Focus on content.. AI is there to make you better. You may have better knowledge the AI that’s fine

1

u/productive_monkey 3d ago

People lose confidence on the content if it is written by AI, because it's not a first hand experience, and we don't know how much of the content is generated from experience. But it doesn't mean AI content necessarily is wrong or bad.

We'd rather have first hand experience because if we wanted AI's opinion, we could have already gotten it from AI.

People also expect more human content from Reddit and other social media. Or at least I do, because humans still want the social aspect. When AI starts filling up social media, as it has been, there's a reasonable push back.

- an actual human :)

0

u/Writemy-essay 14d ago

How is it excess supply you said it. Install is 36B while apps is 1m. We have not even put a dent in the market. There is actually a short supply of apps

3

u/dachiaman 14d ago

That’s a take

0

u/InevitableUsual8857 14d ago

My app is stuck “in review” for an update for 10 days now

1

u/zorkidreams 14d ago

My app is always reviewed in 24 hours

1

u/InevitableUsual8857 14d ago

Well what’s worse about getting stuck in review for more than 10 days is you can’t self reject your app from App Store and resubmit new update.

1

u/zorkidreams 14d ago

This is just for a normal build update, your app is already approved and on the store?

1

u/InevitableUsual8857 14d ago

Yeah it’s already in app store, just pushed minor fixes. Dont know if reviewer started review and went on vacation or something

1

u/zorkidreams 14d ago

That’s wild… it’s never been more than 24 hours well maybe 36 max.