Update recency
Any App Store app. The cohort is the apps sharing its search result; change the term after picking.
Why the date matters
“Updated” sits on every App Store product page, and a date two years old reads as abandoned to someone deciding whether to install. It is one of the few signals a prospective user can read without installing anything. In a sampled search the spread was stark: the active apps had shipped within ten days, the neglected ones two to five months earlier. Whichever side you are on, it is visible.
Got something to ship? The release notes writer turns a changelog into the What’s New copy that goes with it.
About this tool
How long ago did you ship, against everyone in your result?
Apple shows a last-updated date on every product page, and a listing that has not moved in a year says something to anyone who checks. This reports how long ago your app shipped and distributes the 25 apps in your search result across six recency windows.
It also quotes Apple’s App Store Improvements rules precisely, because the fear of removal is usually worse than the actual policy.
How it works
- 1Pick an app and a search term. Appstro reads the 25 apps in that search result, and your own listing.
- 2Your app is taken from the same search result as its rivals whenever it ranks, so everyone is compared at the same moment. Apple’s search results and its app listings can briefly disagree — by six days for the same app, in one case — and mixing the two reported an app as behind on a morning it had already shipped.
- 3Recency is bucketed into six windows and your position is given as a percentile.
- 4Apps Apple returned no date for are excluded from every figure and counted, never treated as stale.
What it cannot tell you
- It is recency, not cadence. Apple publishes only the current version’s release date, so "last shipped 12 days ago" is supportable and "ships every 12 days" is not.
- No claim that shipping often improves ranking — Apple publishes no such factor. What is verifiable is that the date is on your public product page and that each release reaches existing users through the Updates tab.
- It will never tell you to ship more. It cannot see whether you have anything worth shipping, and an update pushed to move a date is churn.
Questions
Will Apple remove my app if I do not update it?
Only if both conditions hold: three years without an update and a failure to meet a minimal download threshold. Apple emails first and gives 90 days to submit. An old app that still gets downloads is not at risk.
How often should I update my app?
This page shows what your competitors actually do rather than prescribing a number. Shipping to move a date, with nothing in the release, is churn.
Why does the date here differ from what I see elsewhere?
Apple’s search results and its app listings are not always updated at the same moment — observed six days apart for the same app, seconds apart. This page takes your app from the same search result as its rivals wherever possible and says when it could not.
Written up on the blog
Benchmarks & money
Paid tools do this too. App Store optimization tools, compared — 9 of them, described the same way and in alphabetical order.