Comment: Epic vs. Apple case reveals how hollow tvOS and watchOS App Stores are - 9to5Mac

Only 73 new apps for watchOS were submitted this week, for example, which shows that apart from the iPhone and iPad App Store, there’s not much to find on other Apple stores.

According to these numbers Apple shared in this case, in 2019, there were 10,009 tvOS apps available and 27,240 macOS apps available in its stores, while more than one million apps were available on the iPhone/iPad App Store.

These numbers mean at least two things: the iPhone is Apple’s biggest hit and developers are not willing to create apps for tvOS and watchOS.

In Apple Watch’s case, developers usually say the WatchKit SDK is limited and many native Apple Watch apps use private APIs that other apps can’t access to offer the same experience.

Over the years, Apple improved the experience to develop for watchOS but many developers who bet on the platform in the early days, never develop for the Watch again.

In 2018, for example, Instagram was one of the many apps that were pulled out from the Apple Watch App Store as Apple required native apps in updates:.

For example, the app did not work on Wi-Fi or LTE despite Apple Watch gaining the ability to load apps without iPhone nearby, and Instagram never added any messaging features despite owner Facebook offering support for Messenger on Apple Watch.

As of 2021, Spotify is one of the few apps that are back to the Watch App Store, but it’s still less efficient than the Apple Music Watch app.

It’s also interesting to see the company’s effort in the past three years to make developers continue to create apps through all its Apple Stores.

Since then, it Apple released more Apple Watch APIs for developers as well the ability to create its own custom – although still limited – Watch Faces?