Both Apple and Google have announced plans to remove those apps that have remained unattended on their respective app stores for long, CNET reported. Specifically, both companies have said they are going to remove those apps that have not been updated in the past two years. An estimate by the analyst firm Pixalate has put the number of apps set to be on the chopping block at around 869,000 for Google Play and 650,000 for the Apple App Store.

That again makes for a significant number and easily sums up to be a third of the total app selection of each app store. Once the process of removing the abandoned apps is over, the Google Play Store will be reduced to 1.7 million apps from the current 2.6 million apps. For the App Store, the total app count will be reduced to 1.3 million from the current 1.95 million apps.

Interestingly, while Google has set a cut-off point of two years for the apps to be culled, Apple did not specify any such cut-off point for the developers to follow. Instead, the company said it has emailed developers informing them of their plans to remove all apps that have not been updated for quite some time.

Both Apple and Google justified the move saying older apps that are not being updated are prone to be hacked. Plus, they tend to offer a lower level of user experience as well. Not all developers seem pleased with the move though and have expressed displeasure over the development saying all apps do not require to be updated every year. The developers also rubbished the idea of old apps being broken over time if they aren’t updated.

The move though could be particularly damaging for Apple users since the company does not allow sideloading of apps. Android users will however have it easier to bypass the restriction as they can always sideload the apps or have them sourced from alternative app stores.

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