Everybody mentioned AI would kill apps. As a substitute, new app launches are hovering.
In accordance with a brand new evaluation from market intelligence supplier Appfigures, worldwide app releases within the first quarter of 2026 have been up 60% year-over-year throughout each Apple’s App Retailer and Google Play. That share was a good larger 80% when trying on the iOS App Retailer alone. In April 2026 to date, the whole variety of app releases is up 104% throughout each shops in comparison with the identical time final yr, and up 89% on iOS.
As Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Advertising, Greg “Joz” Joswiak, quipped In a recent interview: rumors of the App Retailer’s dying within the AI age “could have been vastly exaggerated.”
These findings come amid considerations that the rise of AI chatbots and brokers would finally see customers turning away from apps — a principle that’s already being floated by these within the trade, like Nothing CEO Carl Pei, who is concentrated on constructing a smartphone for the AI period. The New York Times additionally reported final yr on the potential for brand spanking new computing platforms to eclipse the smartphone, like good glasses, ambient computing units, or reimagined smartwatches with AI options.
OpenAI is even engaged on an AI {hardware} system with famed Apple designer Jony Ive.
However there’s one other chance, too: AI will make it simpler for anybody to create apps, driving a rebirth of the App Retailer. The brand new app gold rush may very well be led by creators who’ve concepts however not the technical expertise to design cellular software program.
Appfigures’ information signifies that sure classes of apps are seeing extra new releases than others.
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Cell video games nonetheless account for many of the new app releases worldwide as of Q1 2026, as they’ve in prior years. However “productiveness” apps have moved into the highest 5 this yr. The “utilities” class has additionally moved as much as the quantity two slot, and the “way of life” apps class moved up from the No. 5 slot final yr to now No. 3. Lastly, “well being and health”-style purposes rounded out the highest 5 classes.
The working speculation right here is that AI-powered instruments, like Claude Code or Replit, may very well be behind the surge of recent launches. It additionally appears doable that we’re hitting some type of tipping level by way of AI usability, the place it’s straightforward sufficient for individuals to leverage these instruments to construct their very own desired cellular apps extra shortly — and even construct their first apps ever.
The explosion of recent apps for Apple to evaluate is also behind among the tech big’s current missteps. This week, Apple pulled the rewards app Freecash from the App Retailer for guidelines violations, after letting the app climb the shop’s High Charts and sit within the prime 5 for months. Apple was additionally caught off guard by a malicious cryptocurrency app, a clone of Ledger Dwell, that drained $9.5 million in crypto from victims’ accounts.
Whereas high-profile issues like this will generate dangerous PR for the App Retailer, the corporate nonetheless does a whole lot of heavy lifting by way of blocking and rejecting harmful or spammy apps. Apple’s most recent analysis from 2024 mentioned the corporate had eliminated or rejected greater than 17,000 apps for bait-and-switch violations that yr; rejected greater than 320,000 app submissions that have been discovered to be spam, copying different apps, or deceptive; and took motion to stop greater than 37,000 probably fraudulent apps from reaching customers on the App Retailer.
Nonetheless, Apple pundits like John Gruber have long argued that the App Retailer needs a “bunco squad” of types that watches for scammy or fraudulent apps which might be gaining in reputation or high-grossing.
If AI-assisted vibe coding seems to be behind the current surge of app releases, that want will solely develop as extra new apps flood {the marketplace}, not all of which will probably be benign.
