Apple’s practice of leveraging ideas from the third-party developer community to make new iOS and Mac apps and features has come at a heavy price, according to a new report. With the release of iOS 18 later this fall, Apple’s changes could affect apps that currently have about $393 million in revenue and have been downloaded about 58 million times in the past year, according to an analysis by the app intelligence firm Appfigures.
Every June at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, the iPhone maker teases upcoming versions of its software and operating systems, which often include features previously only available through third-party apps. The practice is so widespread now that it even has a name: “sherlocking” — a reference to a 1990s search app for Mac that borrowed features from a third-party app known as Watson. Now, when Apple launches a new feature that was previously the domain of a third-party app, it is said to have “sherlocked” the app.
In previous years, sherlocking apps made some sense. After all, did the iPhone’s lens really need to be a third-party offering, or would it be better off as a built-in feature? Additionally, Apple was able to roll out features that made its software more responsive to consumer wants and needs by looking at what’s popular in the third-party developer community.
Of course, this practice also raises the question of whether Apple is leveraging proprietary data to decide what to build next, and whether the apps it competes with are being offered a level playing field. For example, before Apple launched its own parental control system, it shut down many third-party apps that had built businesses in this space, saying that their solutions were no longer compatible with its rules and policies. Apps were not offered access to a developer API to manage Apple’s built-in parental controls for years, prompting an anti-collusion investigation.
In more recent years, Apple has locked out third parties with the release of features like Continuity Camera, medication tracking, sleep tracking, and mood tracking, as well as apps like Freeform and Journal. This year, it turned its attention to password managers, call recording and transcription apps, custom emoji creators, AI writing tools and math assistants, route apps, and more.
In an analysis of third-party apps that generated more than 1,000 downloads per year, Appfigures discovered several genres that were in Apple’s sights in 2024.
In terms of global gross revenue, these categories have generated significant revenue over the past 12 months, with the trail app category bringing in the most at $307 million annually, led by market leader and AllTrails ‘App of the Year’ Apple’s 2023. Grammar helpers like Grammarly and others also brought in $35.7 million, while math helpers and password managers earned $23.4 million and $20.3 million, respectively. Apps for creating custom emojis also brought in $7 million.
Of these, trail apps accounted for the vast majority of “potentially sherlocked” revenue, or 78%, as noted in Appfigures, as well as 40% of sherlocked app downloads. As of May 2024, they accounted for approximately $28.8 million in gross consumer spending and 2.5 million downloads, to give you an idea of the scale.
Many of these app categories were growing rapidly, with math solvers seeing revenue growth of 43% year-on-year, followed by grammar assistants (+40%), password managers (+38%) and route apps (+28%) ). However, emoji creation apps saw a decline of -17% year-over-year.
By downloads, grammar helpers had seen 9.4 million installs in the last 12 months, followed by emoji makers (10.6 million), math solving apps (9.5 million) and password managers (457,000 installs). .
While these apps certainly have dedicated user bases that may not immediately choose to jump to a first-party offering, Apple’s ability to offer similar built-in functionality could be detrimental to their potential growth. Casual users may be satisfied with Apple’s “good enough” solutions and won’t look for alternatives.
However, apps that continue to develop new features and add improvements beyond what Apple includes, while also taking advantage of other new ways to reach users, such as through Apple’s improved Siri, may have a better image than others.
