Everybody mentioned AI would kill apps. As a substitute, new app launches are hovering.
In keeping 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 an excellent larger 80% when wanting on the iOS App Retailer alone. In April 2026 thus far, the entire 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 and marketing, Greg “Joz” Joswiak, quipped In a latest interview: rumors of the App Retailer’s loss of life within the AI age “might have been drastically exaggerated.”
These findings come amid issues that the rise of AI chatbots and brokers would in the end see customers turning away from apps — a principle that’s already being floated by these within the business, like Nothing CEO Carl Pei, who is concentrated on constructing a smartphone for the AI period. The New York Occasions additionally reported final yr on the potential for brand new computing platforms to eclipse the smartphone, like sensible glasses, ambient computing gadgets, or reimagined smartwatches with AI options.
OpenAI is even engaged on an AI {hardware} machine with famed Apple designer Jony Ive.
However there’s one other risk, 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 abilities to design cell software program.
Appfigures’ information signifies that sure classes of apps are seeing extra new releases than others.
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Cellular video games nonetheless account for a lot 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 “life-style” 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 latest launches. It additionally appears attainable that we’re hitting some form of tipping level by way of AI usability, the place it’s straightforward sufficient for folks to leverage these instruments to construct their very own desired cell apps extra rapidly — and even construct their first apps ever.
The explosion of latest apps for Apple to overview may be behind among the tech large’s latest missteps. This week, Apple pulled the rewards app Freecash from the App Retailer for guidelines violations, after letting the app climb the shop’s Prime Charts and sit within the high 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 could generate unhealthy PR for the App Retailer, the corporate nonetheless does lots of heavy lifting by way of blocking and rejecting harmful or spammy apps. Apple’s most up-to-date evaluation 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 forestall greater than 37,000 doubtlessly fraudulent apps from reaching customers on the App Retailer.
Nonetheless, Apple pundits like John Gruber have lengthy argued that the App Retailer wants a “bunco squad” of types that watches for scammy or fraudulent apps which are gaining in recognition or high-grossing.
If AI-assisted vibe coding seems to be behind the latest surge of app releases, that want will solely develop as extra new apps flood {the marketplace}, not all of which will likely be benign.