Kevin Bostic
Google recently undertook a considerable spring cleaning effort in its Play Store, sweeping away nearly 10 percent of the apps in the Android app repository in order to cut down on the number of "spammy" apps — a move that could signal a more Apple-like approach to Google's handling of its marketplace.
"a company in the mobile app industry" with insight into the process said Google had played a part in the removal of some 60,000 apps since February of this year, TechCrunch reported this week. Some apps are said to have been pulled by publishers themselves, but the scale of the Play Store cleaning suggests that Google itself had a hand in the overall app reduction.
The 60,000 app figure represents, depending on one's estimate of the Play Store's size, between 7.5 and 10 percent of the apps in Google's Android app repository.
Google doesn't exert the same degree of control that Apple does over its App Store, preferring instead to simply delete only apps that violate its Terms of Service by spreading malware, infringing copyrights, or featuring graphic sexual material. The new round of removals, though, appears to have targeted ringtone/MP3 apps in large part, signaling perhaps that Google is looking to moderate its Play Store more thoroughly for quality.
Unlike Apple, though, Google appears to be going about its quality moderation in an almost entirely automated manner. Whereas Apple has apps go through an approval process before they can be posted to the App Store, Google looks to be exerting a looser form of quality control on the tail end of the process, removing unsatisfactory apps later.
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62 Comments
They will be left with hardly 120000 apps. Out of them, 119900 are not at all downloaded at least once.
This is good news for developers and users of Android. I wonder if there are still countless "Hello World" apps on Google Play? [quote name="Chandra69" url="/t/156882/play-time-over-for-60k-low-quality-apps-as-google-fights-android-spam#post_2307531"]They will be left with hardly 120000 apps. Out of them, 119900 are not at all downloaded at least once. [/quote] For comparison, Windows Phone had over 150,000 as of last December and Blackberry 10's app store hit 100,000 just last month. Apple is still far in the lead with the best development platform, most efficient and best looking apps, most approved apps at over 1 million, and over 800,000 currently available apps (300,000 being designed specifically for the iPad), and most popular app store with over 40 billion downloaded.
Whereas Apple has apps go through an approval process before they can be posted to the App Store, Google looks to be exerting a looser form of quality control on the tail end of the process, removing unsatisfactory apps later.
In other words, Apple applies an ounce of prevention, Google applies a pound of cure.
But...but... Google is "open", and "Free", and not part of "The Man"!!!
Google can't possibly be thinking of telling developers what they can and can't put on on "open" store can they?
Hypocrites. Let's see what the Android fantards do to spin this story.
Google can't possibly be thinking of telling developers what they can and can't put on on "open" store can they?
You might want to correct yourself... it is an open platform, NOT an open store. There are policies and terms to get an app on the Google Play. Violate the rules and your app will be removed.
I am free to make all the "crappy" apps I want and place them on any number of third-party store or even on my own website for side loading. Just dont expect to have them on Google Play or at least for very long. The platform is open.
Was that enough spin for you and your "fantard" expectations?