A Survey of App Store Analysis for Software Engineering

• Published in: IEEE transactions on software engineering Vol. 43; no. 9; pp. 817 - 847
• Main Authors: Martin, William, Sarro, Federica, Yue Jia, Yuanyuan Zhang, Harman, Mark
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.09.2017; IEEE Computer Society
• Subjects: analysis; API; App store; Design engineering; ecosystem; Ecosystems; feature; Google; mining; Mobile communication; release planning; Repositories; requirements engineering; reviews; Security; Software; Software development; Software engineering; Technical information; Trends
• ISSN: 0098-5589; 1939-3520
• DOI: 10.1109/TSE.2016.2630689

App Store Analysis studies information about applications obtained from app stores. App stores provide a wealth of information derived from users that would not exist had the applications been distributed via previous software deployment methods. App Store Analysis combines this non-technical information with technical information to learn trends and behaviours within these forms of software repositories. Findings from App Store Analysis have a direct and actionable impact on the software teams that develop software for app stores, and have led to techniques for requirements engineering, release planning, software design, security and testing. This survey describes and compares the areas of research that have been explored thus far, drawing out common aspects, trends and directions future research should take to address open problems and challenges.