Install Friction
Two lines on every product page quietly decide who can install an app and who bothers — the minimum iOS version and the download size. Neither turns up in an ASO tool. This puts both next to the 25 apps you share a search result with.
Why these two lines
A minimum iOS version is a gate: a device running something older cannot install the current build at all. A download size is a cost, printed on the product page in plain MB, and one of the very few a prospective user can read before tapping Get. The spread inside a single result is wider than most people expect — measured live in the US storefront, the 25-app cohort for “photo editor” ran from iOS 13.0 to iOS 18.0, and from 78.8 MB to 857.7 MB.
Shipping the release that moves either one? The release notes writer turns the changelog into the What’s New copy, and update recency benchmarks how long ago the same cohort last shipped.
Is your minimum iOS version or download size costing you installs?
Two facts on every listing decide whether some people can install at all: the minimum iOS version and the download size. This compares both against the 25 apps in your search result.
Raising a minimum version is a legitimate engineering decision, and a smaller app is not automatically better — so this reports where you sit rather than scoring you.
How it works
- 1One search call builds the cohort and one lookup covers your app.
- 2Version strings are canonicalised before sorting, because Apple mixes bare and dotted forms in the same response — verified live with 15, 16 and 17 alongside 15.0, 16.0 and 17.0, which a plain string sort both splits and misorders.
- 3The cohort median version is an observed value, never an average — averaging 15.0 and 16.0 would print 15.5, a version nobody requires.
- 4Download sizes are converted from bytes in decimal megabytes, matching what Apple prints on its own product page.
What it cannot tell you
- It cannot tell you what percentage of devices your minimum excludes. Apple publishes only the latest adoption figure and no per-version breakdown, so that number is not computable and is not printed here.
- No cellular download threshold is stated, because the current one could not be confirmed — published figures disagree and the hard limit was reportedly removed years ago. There is deliberately no size histogram either, since any bucket edge would read as that threshold.
- There is no score, and no instruction to lower your minimum.
Frequently asked questions
What minimum iOS version should I support?
This page shows the observed median across the apps you compete with, which is a better anchor than a general rule. The trade is between reach and the APIs you can use, and only you can see that side.
How big is too big for an App Store app?
No threshold is stated here because the current cellular download limit could not be confirmed from a reliable source. What is shown is your size against the apps in your result.
Why is the size here different from what I saw elsewhere?
Apple reports bytes and prints decimal megabytes on its product pages — dividing by 1024² instead gives a smaller-looking number that disagrees with Apple’s own page.