A simple suggestion for improving app discovery on Android and iPhone

Are apps already installed on people’s smartphones hampering them from discovering your cool new app? Animoca, as a global developer and publisher of mobile games, is particularly interested about the problem of app discovery.

According to Nielsen’s Mobile Media Report:

“63% of users discover apps by browsing or searching within app stores.”

Once an app reaches the upper range of the “Top” charts, it becomes visible to a much higher number of users and its download rate accelerates significantly, which means a presence high up in the charts is a bit like the Holy Grail of app publishing.

The real estate on a smartphone screen is limited but highly valuable to app discovery – and yet, this screen real estate is far from fully utilized. An iPhone (4S and below) displays 5 items per screen when browsing the App Store charts (4 if you’re using the new iOS6 update). The Google Play interface for Android phones typically displays 12 items per screen.

(iPads and some Android tablets may display a greater number of apps on the screen, but we are looking specifically at smartphones, where screen real estate is more restricted.)

Making things worse is the fact that apps you already own still show up in an app store. This redundancy is an obstacle to app discovery, since you’re obviously not going to download an app you already have. This clutter can be particularly problematic in the “free apps” lists. Here is a screenshot of the Google Play store on a brand new Sony Xperia U:

Notice that 7 out of the first 12 Top Free apps shown are already installed on the new phone, which means that superfluous entries occupy 58% of the highest-prized screen real estate on this Google Play chart. The situation improves on screens 2 and 3 (entries 13-36), as Google Play displays only a few apps that are already installed on the device. Keep in mind this is the situation on a brand new phone. Devices that are used regularly to download apps will contain more redundant entries.

Here’s our suggestion: For users browsing app stores, have an option for them to hide the apps already installed on the device. This could be achieved with a simple toggle for the Google Play store or the iTunes App Store.