Appstream

There are well over 500,000 Apps on Apple’s App Store alone and the numbers keep rising everyday.  Knowing what’s hot in the App Store is limited as they only feature a sampling of these in their “featured” and “top charts” section.

It is no surprise that there is money to be made from mapping the trends on the App Store and Appsfire has just done that with a $3.6 million dollar funding from fund investor Idinvest.

How it works

Appstream developed by Appsfire scans a user’s downloaded apps and generates a list of recommended, featured and hot apps.  It allows users to:

• Filter for free or paid apps
• See how hot an app is using their FireMeter
• Share an app on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• See what Apps other use – you can also check out lists compiled by specialized publishers, or collections of apps installed by tech pundits and thought leaders (dubbed VIPs and featured users).
• Sync Apps - install Appsfire Sync on your Mac or PC. It will scan your apps on iTunes and create your MyApps profile. With this profile, you can share your apps by email, social network or widget. Your profile will also sync directly with the Appsfire iPhone app when you install it.

The future of App Mapping

Appstream for iPad is free on the App Store.  They fill a void left by the App Store to allow users to discover Apps and I personally believe that these services are an important aspect of maintaining the App Store ecosystem.

This void is caused primarily by lackluster method that Apple chooses to highlight their Apps.  Perhaps they can take a page from successful online retailers like Amazon.  Of course, knowing Apple, it is only a matter of time before they revamp the App Store.