A look at the Mac App Store, two months after Lion launched
In mid-July, a week before Apple launched OS X Lion, I took a look at the Mac App Store. Now, two months after Lion went on sale, let’s see what’s changed.
In that span, the number of apps in the Mac App Store has grown almost 20%, and Apple’s own apps represent a smaller portion of the top-10 lists. And, importantly, the price of a top-50 grossing app has increased more than 40%, suggesting that people are comfortable spending more than $50 (and in many cases, more than $100) on an App Store app. That’s good news for everyone involved.
What we haven’t seen are big moves by companies like Microsoft or Adobe into the Mac App Store. Adobe launched Photoshop Elements in July, and it seems to be doing pretty well, as the no. 7 highest-grossing app. But it’s still not clear if more of the Creative Suite or Microsoft’s Office suite will eventually make it into the Mac App Store.
In general, though, it seems as if app selection is growing nicely. And now that Lion is the default OS installed on new Macs, and as more Mac users upgrade, App Store sales should continue to grow. (One Mac developer I spoke to at WWDC said that even then, before Lion launched, App Store sales had already doubled his revenue.)
- App quantity: 6,976, up 19% from 5,853 in mid-July, per AppShopper.
- Top paid apps: OS X Lion, Pages, Modern Combat, FaceTime, Keynote, Numbers, NOVA 2, iPhoto, iSplash, Angry Birds. 6 of top 10 paid are Apple apps, down from 7 before.
- Top free apps: Screen Snake, GeekTool, Marble World Desktop, Wallpapers HD Lite, Evernote, Facebox Pro, Rail Maze, Twitter, Xcode, and The Unarchiver. Good variety of app types, and 5 of the same top-10 apps as before.
- Top grossing apps: OS X Lion, Pages, Final Cut Pro, Keynote, Numbers, Aperture, Adobe Photoshop Elements, iPhoto, AutoCAD LT, 1Password. 7 of top 10 grossing are Apple apps, down from 9 before.
- Average price of top-50 paid app: $21.39, up 5% from $20.39.
- Average price of top-50 grossing app: $65.15, up 43% from $45.59.
- Apps by Microsoft: 1, Windows Phone 7 Connector. (Same as before.)
- Apps by Adobe: 1, Photoshop Elements. (Up from 0 before.)
Also: 500 days with the iPad

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