Identifying quality educational apps: Lessons from ‘top’ mathematics apps in the Apple App store

There are 80,000+ educational apps in the Apple App Store and math apps are the most common. We searched for ‘math’ in the education category and selected the top 10 apps for each of the 3 filters provided by Apple (Relevance, Popularity, Rating) and 3 age categories (0–5, 6–8, 9–11). Using these top 90 apps, we examined the basic information (e.g., price), educational content, and user ratings to see whether the information provided in app stores helps parents and educators find quality educational apps. There was a surprising lack of transparency and meaningful information. The Apple App store needs to explain how it selects ‘top’ apps and developers need to provide benchmarks of educational quality in their app descriptions.