Shakeup in the App Store Top Downloads List

MG Siegler, writing at Spyglass:

Anyway, this matters because it doesn’t mean that DeepSeek, an app based off of the Chinese-developed AI model of the same name, is the most popular app ever despite its current place atop the charts. Your mom probably isn’t downloading it. Just as last week, your mom probably wasn’t downloading Xiaohongshu (‘Little Red Book’), incidentally another Chinese app that rose to the top of the charts. But it is still interesting because again, the mainstays have in recent years dominated these charts. Sure, new entrants would rise (and fall) from time-to-time but it was almost always some order of: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads, TikTok, CapCut, YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps, etc. Right now, there is only a single app from Meta (Threads) and one from Google (Google) in the top 10.

Instead, we have the aforementioned DeepSeek, ChatGPT, Paramount+, Temu, Fox Sports, Bluesky, ReelShort, and VPN rounding out the top 10. It’s pretty easy to see why each of these has risen: interest in AI, interest in sports around the NFL playoffs, interest in Twitter-like social networks given the Xitter situation, and yes, the TikTok ban.

The specific reasons are varied, but altogether it really is true that, for the moment at least, there’s a serious shakeup atop the App Store top free downloads list. That’s interesting for several reasons.

DeepSeek is at #1 and ChatGPT #2. That’s great for “AI” but a bad look for OpenAI at the moment. I can’t help but think that DeepSeek having rocketed to the top spot, seemingly (but not actually) out of nowhere helped drive today’s stock market reaction. (Google Gemini is down at #14.)

Secondarily, and perhaps counterintuitively, it showcases Apple’s strength in AI. Sure, Apple’s own Apple Intelligence is years behind and pretty embarrassing right now, even with its much ballyhooed partnership with ChatGPT. But the iPhone is where people actually use AI and the App Store is how they get the apps they use. To borrow Ben Thompson’s framing, the hype over DeepSeek taking the top spot in the App Store reinforces Apple’s role as an aggregator of AI. The measuring stick for consumer AI products and public social media networks is where they’re listed on the App Store. Not app stores, lowercase. The App Store. Apple’s. That’s The Show, the Major Leagues. So sure, it’d be better for Apple users and Apple shareholders, and thus better for Apple itself, if Apple’s own AI was at least sort of kind of competitive, rather than the butt of jokes. Aside from the easily forgotten iTunes Ping 15 years ago, Apple hasn’t even tried to offer its own public broadcast-style social media platform. But the iPhone is the place where social media networks are used and ranked. The App Store today is like the cable company of yore. It didn’t matter if Comcast’s own channels were the most popular — so long as everyone was watching channels through TVs connected to Comcast TV service, Comcast was getting their cut.

Lastly, when it comes to Meta: Threads is #3 (the people arguing that Threads is a bust sure are quiet lately), Instagram is down to #16 (not great if they were hoping for a bounce from TikTok’s questionable future), WhatsApp #17 (not bad on iOS in the US, where iMessage is strongest) and Facebook is ... scroll, scroll, scroll ... #32, just behind Walmart and Microsoft Teams. 32 isn’t that far ahead of X, which clocks in at #41. Facebook might never die, but we seem to be watching it fade away.

★ Monday, 27 January 2025