Apple's challenge: We're stuck in an app rut

Jefferson Graham | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Planet of the Apps? USA Today reporter Rachel Sandler asked people in San Francisco if apps are as popular as Apple says. Do people even care about apps anymore?

SAN FRANCISCO —A world without apps.

Let’s step back in time for a moment and imagine going back to using foldable maps or Web printouts for directions, hailing cabs (or even taking a bus!), and no social tools to share those daily self-portraits.

Apple kicked off its big Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose this week with a humorous video showing what that app-less world might be like. The company also debuted its new online TV show, Planet of the Apps, a Shark Tank meets The Voice competition positioned to showcase the rock star of today, at least in Apple's mind: the app maker.

Apple has a point about apps. A handful really have been lifechanging, and you can count them on one hand: transportation apps such as Uber and Lyft, navigation favorites Google Maps and Waze, mobile-only social networks Snapchat and Instagram, and relationship tools such as Tinder.

But that planet Apple speaks of is an app universe with, let’s face it, mostly veterans. We haven't seen a new smash app released and stay atop the charts for months in years.

Apps began in 2008, when Apple introduced the App Store, and none of the apps featured in Apple’s promo film are recent ones. In fact, with all the talk about apps this week, a quick glance at the App Store charts shows the same old-timers atop the list — YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, Bitmoji, Facebook and Google Maps. Bitmoji and Messenger are the most recent, and they debuted in 2015.

Only a handful of new apps have cracked the top 30 chart and stayed there — a trend we noted in March — with Wish, Letgo and Musical.ly, apps to buy cheap stuff from China, sell stuff to others in a safer environment than Craigslist and lip synch to songs, respectively. Pokémon Go was a summer smash in 2016. It's not currently listed in the iTunes Top 200 but does rank at No. 47 in the Games category.

With all the Apple hype this week, we wondered whether folks are still really downloading apps. Or is that something they did years ago when they got their new smartphones?

When we talked to consumers in San Francisco this week, we were surprised. Most told us they did indeed download them daily, weekly and monthly, and very few told us they rarely download apps.

But the apps they download are the same old ones: Uber, Lyft, Facebook Messenger, Waze, Twitter, Shazam, Fun Run 2 and Candy Crush.

Market research firm AppAnnie tells us that indeed, some 30 million apps are downloaded every day worldwide. Yes, there still are millions of people either adding Facebook and Instagram to their phones for the first time or perhaps re-downloading to add to their new phones.

Clearly Apple has its work cut out for it to get new apps into the hands of consumers. The company announced a new look to its App Store, coming in September, to try and bring better attention to debuting apps. We’ll find out in a few months if the update can change the makeup in the charts.

Siri leads hits and misses list from Apple's event https://t.co/yZxloVYsIj via @usatoday — jeffersongraham (@jeffersongraham) June 6, 2017

In other tech news of the week:

—Pandora can breathe again. The struggling online radio station, which has lots of listeners but sky-high royalty commitments, got a $480 million lifeline from satellite broadcaster SiriusXM. Do the two merge next?

—Amazon killed the best deal in town for online backup. The $59.99 unlimited storage for Amazon’s Cloud Drive is now limited at 1 terabyte of storage. We now dub Backblaze best-deal status, at $50 yearly. In other online storage news, Apple sweetened its pricing for iCloud backup, offering 2 TB of data for $120 yearly. It had previously offered 1 TB for the same price. In the digital age, with our ever-increasing array of photos and videos on multiple devices, the need for online storage is more vital than ever.

—More troubles for ride-hailing company Uber, which has suffered through a lousy corporate 2017 amidst reports of sexual harassment and other ills. This week we learned the company fired an executive who ran its Asia Pacific operations, but only after a news outlet found out he had obtained and shared with other executives the medical records of a woman who was raped by an Uber driver in India.

—Hacking update: Pop star Britney Spears' Instagram account was used by Russian hackers as a secret bulletin board to place coded messages that were part of a malware scheme, a security company reported.

—Finally, ICYMI, Apple announced a lot at the WWDC. The highlights: the HomePod, a new $350 premium Wi-Fi music speaker controlled by Siri, Apple’s personal assistant, will go on sale in December; Apple’s iOS mobile operating system gets an update in September with new features, including the ability to pay friends via text messages, and new augmented reality software for developers to bring to new apps. Additionally, new powerful iPads and iMacs were unveiled.

10-year-old app developer's advice to other kids: Get coding now https://t.co/bi0xXYTSwG via @usatoday — jeffersongraham (@jeffersongraham) June 8, 2017

Meet Apple's youngest developer at WWDC Meet Yuma Soerianto, the young 10-year-old app developer from Australia flown to San Francisco to learn about apps at Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference.

Did you catch this week's #TalkingTech podcasts?

—We began our pre-WWDC Apple coverage with a chat about Siri, the personal digital assistant. Veteran tech journalist Walt Mossberg and I weigh in on why Siri has been such a disappointment.

—Our WWDC news roundup and critical look at the hits and misses from the Apple developer conference.

—Fun interview with WWDC's youngest app developer, 10-year-old Yuma Soerianto.

—Our rundown of the 12 apps Apple deemed as the best of 2017, with its Design Awards.

—Finally, our take on how Amazon turned its back on consumers by shifting gears for online storage.

Subscribe to the new #TalkingTech newsletter, usat.ly/2qaIVVQ, the #TalkingTech podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Tunein and wherever else you like to hear great online audio, and follow me on Twitter, @jeffersongraham and on Facebook.com/jefferson_graham.