60% of the apps on the Apple App Store have never been downloaded

Even with 25 Billion downloads, 400,000 apps have never been downloaded

Looking at the Apple iPhone App Store, if I spend 30 seconds reading about each App to decide whether I wanted it or not, it would take me 150,000 minutes, or 2,500 hours or 104.17 days to go through them all.  

I wrote that in December 2010. At that time the Apple Store had 300,000 iPhone apps. Today the Apple App store has a total of 650,000 apps, if you combine both iPhone and iPad apps. That is really too many apps for anyone to actually browse through. The main Android App store, Google Play had 600,000 apps and there are also thousands of other Android apps available from other sources. 

Adeven has free analytic service Apptrace which collects iOS app data in the 155 countries that support the App Store. A study conducted by Adeven shows that 60% of the apps on the Apple App store, around 400,000, have never been downloaded. I would think the situation is similar on Google Play.

Anyone browsing the Apple App Store or Google Play knows that there are too many me-too apps. But the Adeven study reveals that in some cases there are just way to many me too apps. An iPhone user looking for a flashlight app has a staggering 1,899 choices for a really simple app where one really does not provide functionality different from the others.

App Store number are pretty much hype. It really is the number of useful apps which should be the metric.

Source of data: Adeven through Phone Arena

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BlackBerry Curve 9220 Plans: Globe versus Smart

G Globe Telecom and Smart Communications are offerings RIM's entry level BlackBerry Cure 9220 on low cost plans. The BlackBerry Cure 9220 is the entry level gateway to BlackBerry services.

Globe's offering gives you the phone for free, at Plan 499 plus at least one BlackBerry add-on. If you select the cheapest add-on which is unlimited BlackBerry Messaging (BBM), that is a Php99 add-on, for a total monthly bill of Php598. The phone is free, subject to a 24 month lock-in.

If you are thinking of adding on BlackBerry Social or the full set of BlackBerry Services, that will comes out to Php799 or Php1,098. If this is what you prefer, it would be best to apply for a BlackBerry at Plan 999 instead. You get the higher end BlackBerry Cure 9320, 

At first glance, Smart Communications All-In Plan 500 is not as inviting. The phone is not free. You pay Php950 for the phone. Also you are locked-in for a longer period of 30 months.

However, the Smart All-in-Plan allows you to consume the Php500 monthly allocation for BlackBerry Services. If you sign up for a BBM only package, you get unlimited BBM plus Php401 consumable for Php500 per month. For BlackBerry Social (unlimited Facebook, Twitter and BBM) you pay just Php500 a month, with Php200 consumable. If you sign up for the full BlackBerry service (unlimited Internet, email, Facebook, Twitter and BBM) you pay Php599 a month.

Basically, if you are looking for a low cost BBM package, Globe's offering is a good choice. If you want to use a BlackBerry primarily or exclusively for data, the Smart offering may entice you more.