For much of the last decade, the number of new apps launching in Apple’s App Store each year went into a tailspin, falling a whopping 48% between 2016 and 2024, according to data from research firm Sensor Tower. At least that was the case until last year.

In 2025, the number of new apps that showed up in the App Store globally suddenly exploded, growing 30% to nearly 600,000 compared to 2024, according to Sensor Tower. And the momentum seems to be accelerating. In the first quarter of 2026, new apps published to the App Store globally were up 84% to 235,800 from the same period a year earlier.

The likely culprit behind the app explosion is the rapid rise of vibe coding tools, powerful AI-assisted coding apps. The best known of those apps is Anthropic’s Claude Code, released as a limited preview in February last year and more broadly in May. OpenAI’s own AI coding tool, Codex, came out as a limited preview in May last year and more broadly in October.

Es real.