UPDATED 13:43 EDT / AUGUST 02 2012

NEWS

Two-Thirds of Software in iOS App Store Are Zombies

We all have fun playing zombies games on our smartphones and computing devices. But ever heard of games or software acting as ‘Zombies’? Well, a recent finding by German mobile analytics firm Adeven has revealed that around two-third of the software and apps present on the iOS App Store are nothing, but Zombies. This includes around 400,000 App Store apps, which get no downloads, are invisible to users and have no ranking. The entire thing was discovered using Apptrace tool, created by Adeven.

“The reality is there are only a couple of thousand apps that really make some kind of downloads,” said Christian Henschel, Adeven CEO. “This is based on Apple’s closed system — it’s tough to discover those kinds of apps. You don’t have proper search, so the only way to discover new apps is through the top listing. If you’re not on those lists, it’s not sure that you’re being discovered by anyone else. The top 25 tend to be the same companies who spend millions of dollars to get to the top of those lists. If you’re an independent, small app publisher, then it’s really tough to be discovered.”

The firm is also working on enhancing the tool. As of now, Apptrace collates iOS data from the 155 countries, but we will soon see Android analytics by the end of fourth quarter. It will soon be adding the in-app analytics, an awesome feature that will help measuring success within the app as well as the mobile ecosystem.

So far, we have been hearing stories of Android malware menace shoot up, as the count of Android malware has exploded up to 25,000 samples. The Google Play store apps are acting as host to infected apps, with more and more fake versions of popular apps surfacing up. Some of these include Skype, Instagram, Angry Birds Space, and Farm Frenzy. Now, we have iOS also included in the race. The recent App Reputation Report by San Francisco-based mobile app security provider Appthority disclosed security issues raised by the BYOD movement, along with the top targeted app categories on the Android and iOS platform and the sensitive data that the apps can access. The Appthority Platform analyzed the top 50 free apps from Google Play and Apple’s App Store to find the risks involved in having BYOD mobile devices. As most of the smartphone apps have the ability to access user’s personal and sensitive information such as ad networks and/or analytics, contact information, calendar details, or location from the device, this of course is a threat to the organizations practicing BYOD.

[Image credit: Screencap from Organ Trail for iOS; a game about zombies, but not a zombie itself.]


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