A new report finds that 1.5 million apps on both Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store haven’t been updated in two years or longer and get hidden or removed entirely according to recent policy changes.
These “abandoned” apps constitute one-third of the combined app catalogs of the App Store and Play Store, according to the report from analyst firm Pixalate. After two years without an update, apps are more vulnerable to exploits, which is why Apple and Google have introduced new policies in recent months that punish apps neglected by their developers.
If an app hasn’t been updated in two years, it will be hidden from view on the Google Play Store and won’t appear in search results. Apple’s policy for outdated apps is far less clear, though at least one developer said their app would be removed because it was more than two years old.
Neither Apple nor Google responded to comment by time of publication.
