Many are the developers who, due to the limitations of the Mac App Store, choose to use alternative distribution channels to be able to offer more complete applications. According to a study published by AppFigures, this trend has increased in recent months, if you look at the estimates that the company has published.
It should be remembered that Apple does not offer metric information from the App Store or the Mac App Store. The only official figure we have is the one that Apple announced last year in which it stated that the App Store receive more than 100.000 applications or app updates to review every week.
AppFigures claims the average number of launches on the Mac App Store stands, on average, at 343 applications in 2021. The average number of applications in 2020 was almost 400 applications, 392 to be exact. This company states that it is more than likely that the launches in the month of August, have been placed in about 200.
This report does not speculate on the reason for the lower rate of submissions for distribution of applications in the Mac App StoreBut it could be attributed to Mac's relatively low share of the PC market, with a 7,4% share after shipping more than 6 million Macs in Q2021 XNUMX.
Unlike iOS, on macOS you can download and install applications from other platforms, being a less closed environment than iOS, although also with a series of limitations that, sometimes, make it an odyssey to install applications from other sources.
The move to ARM-based M-series processors on the Mac means developers can - with the help of Xcode - encode simultaneously for Mac and iOS with relative ease. So far, only a few iOS developers have brought their products to macOS.
