Apple approved 1,394 apps on Friday
Someone must have lit a fire under Apple's (AAPL) App Store review staff last week.
Having drifted along for much of September, approving as few as 58 new apps on a single day, the staff green lighted "an avalance of apps" on Friday according to AppShopper.com. A total of 1,394 new applications were approved that day, 302 of them games.
AppShopper doesn't say whether Friday's haul set a new record, although that seems likely. The previous high over the previous two months was 947, set on July 30.
As of Tuesday morning, there were 81,161 active applications available on the U.S. portion of the App Store, according to 148Apps.biz. New apps are coming in at the average rate of 296 a day, according to that site, down from a peak of 356 in June.
According to Apple's Aug. 21 letter to the FCC, new apps and updates pour into the store at the rate of 8,500 per week, where they are reviewed at least twice by a staff of 40 full-time reviewers.
If Apple hasn't staffed up since then, Friday must have been a very busy day indeed.
"We had heard Apple had had quite a back log of approvals," wrote AppShopper's arn, "so hopefully, they have cleared the queue for now."
Below the fold: AppShopper's full chart and what it reveals about the review staff's work habits.
Source: AppShopper.com
Some observations:
- The staff works 7 days a week.
- Saturdays tend to be slow, but Mondays can be even slower
- Wednesdays tend to be especially productive
- A lot of work gets done on Sundays
It was on a Sunday, you may recall, that Apple and Google (GOOG) began a series of in-person meetings, phone calls and e-mails that ended in the non-approval of Google Voice app.
See also:
Madoff like Thriller – The first three chapters of a financial thriller for those not wanting to put a book down and really ticked off by the financial fraud of our times is available at:
http://timgilbert.blogspot.com/
Without Apple, this country would be in a much lousier mood
I've just seen a few stories and noted the discussions. It was enough for me to postpone updating to 3.1 myself. Battery life and random freezes/crashes were the main issues. Thanks for the response!
Hey PED, is the trouble with the iPhone OS 3.1 (freezes, crashes, etc.) big big enough for its own post yet?
ex ped: I hadn't really focused on that story, not having experienced the problems myself. I see a bit over 1,000 posts on the Apple discussion boards regarding random crashes on the iPhone 3G. Most of the chatter regarding the iPhone 3GS has to do with shortened battery life. Is that your sense of the shape of things?
My eleven year old son just bought a new 32 gb iPod touch after saving a year. He has about 20 to 25 games which he bought with $25 worth of iTunes gift cards. None of his friends want a PSP or DS for Christmas now. They are all asking for iPod touches.
Whose business is it but to the developers how many apps get approved in a day? Apple is supposed to only spend two minutes per app and approve it because every other mobile platform has instantaneous approval of apps. A developer submits it and it's automatically approved no matter what it does or how well it works. Supposedly, Apple is killing developers with its daily vetting process.
Besides, there is a general rumor going about from other mobile platform users that 99.9% of the apps in the App Store are utterly useless. There are tens of thousands of replicate fart apps and flashlight apps and users are only left with about 10 useful apps out of 81,000. It's been said that when Apple claimed there was thousands more games in the App Store than on both the PSP and DS platform that there were only about five games that were worth playing on the iPhone/Touch and none of them were better than those found on the PSP and DS platforms.
So regardless how many apps are approved by Apple in a day, there is only one app per week that is worth using. Go to any competing mobile platform and users will tell you that.
The only useful app that EVERYONE wanted was Google Voice and Apple banned it forever and lied about it, too. Look for the App Store to be shutting down in a month.
Has anyone downloaded 10,000 apps so far and found any good ones that were useful to them?
"It was on a Sunday, you may recall, that Apple and Google (GOOG) began a series of in-person meetings, phone calls and e-mails that ended in the non-approval of Google Voice app."
Yeah. As written. But Apple also says, per your column, the following:
"In response to a request for comment about the specific passage quoted above, Apple spokesperson Steve Dowling replied instead: "We do not agree with all of the statements made by Google in its letter. Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application. We continue to discuss it with Google.""
ex ped: That's why I was careful to write "non-approval" and not "rejection." Far be it from me to contradict Steve Dowling.
Mr. James,
What? Do you have a point beyond just saying that nugget of "information".
And to clarify, I believe the name of the author's blog is Apple 2.0. Brainstorm Tech is the section where his blog is filed under.
Please make a more valid attempt next time as justifying the air you breathe.
Apple is not a union shop, Tsugawa. Its success requires it to work 24/7. Haven't you heard about the recession? It's been in all of the papers. Some people are mighty glad to have jobs, even if it requires they work weekends and/or swing shift.
And the Google Voice crocodile tears continue to flow. "1,394 apps approved … Google hardest hit." Give it a rest, would you?
Mr. Elmer-Dewitt,
The name of your blog is Brainstorm Tech. I think a little more brainstorming might have been in order before you posted
Apple approved 1,394 apps on Friday
The IEEE 1394 interface is the designation for FireWire
IEEE 1394 interface – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I heard that MadLipz and iZinger were approved recently – these Apps have definitely improved the "fun quotient" on my iPhone!
7 days a week working? No Way
Approving apps manual, but maybe after that somehow automatic process going..
Hey iphonerulez, yes, downloaded a cool game today called Nok Hockey.
Nice nostalgia to it, and fun to play. Can't go wrong for $0.99.