Apple Begins App Store Autumn Cleanup

In line with its announcement earlier this month, Apple has begun an autumn cleanup of the App Store. The effort should result in much higher-quality apps and search results.

French blog iGen points to an application named Gy en Sologne developed by Laurent Humbert, which was released on September 17, 2012, and never updated since. According to an email received from Apple this past weekend, if the developer doesn’t update the app and submit it for review within 30 days, it will be removed from the App Store.

If a developer decides to let the app go and Apple proceeds with its removal, users who have downloaded the app will still be able to use it to make in-app purchases and even re-download it when restoring from an iCloud or iTunes backup.

The App Store now has more than 2 million apps, and around 100,000 new and updated apps are submitted each week, according to Apple. You may already know that discoverability was and continues to be something Apple needs to address – it has made various efforts to improve it, but it still remains an issue, as does the quality of apps.

In an email sent out to developers at the beginning of September, Apple emphasized once again the importance of quality; hence the company has announced that it will launch an “autumn” cleanup session, which will affect abandoned apps. The company also announced that it will require shorter app names moving forward, with a limit of 50 characters.