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'Tis the season of gift-giving, and if you're curious about what presents people bought this year, the App Store's Top Charts is full of clues.
Apple's Top Charts features the most downloaded apps and it fluctuates frequently. While popular apps like TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, and ChatGPT often top the charts, the top five free App rankings on Thursday morning were all tied to products — and they offer a hint at which gifts were popular over the holidays.
screenshot/App Store
Meta Horizon, the company's social platform for the metaverse, topped the charts for the free app category. It's used to set up the Meta Quest mixed-reality headsets, which are similar to Apple's Vision Pro headset but significantly cheaper. The platform also offers access to apps, tools, and services.
Amazon Alexa scored the second spot, indicating that Amazon Echo devices were a popular gift this year. Alexa is the voice-assistant technology that powers Amazon Echo devices, which are Amazon's collection of smart home speakers. Users can use the app to manage Echo devices, control music, track reminders, and set alarm clocks.
Digital photo frames also seemed to be a popular Christmas gift this year.
Frameo
Frameo and Aura Frames took third and fourth place on Apple's top charts. Both companies are digital photo frame systems and rely on apps to send and share photos digitally to other frames.
Mytonies took fifth place in the top charts, suggesting that Tonies and Tonieboxes were under many Christmas trees this year. The screen-free devices are child-friendly audio systems for listening to stories, music, and educational content.
tonies
A Toniebox is a portable audio player for children, while Tonies are collectible toy figures preloaded with audio content. The app manages all the Tonies in your household and allows owners to add songs or stories to the devices.
Beyond the top five apps, the rankings become more varied and reflective of more usual app trends. However, the PlayStation App secured the No. 10 spot, suggesting plenty of PlayStation 5 game consoles were unwrapped and set up, and the Xbox app also made it into the Top Charts, landing in 22nd place.
Bose clocked in at No. 15, suggesting people were purchasing Bose headphones or speakers this season.
While it's not a comprehensive breakdown of the most popular gifts of the year, Apple's list of the top free downloaded apps is a good indicator of where consumer spending went over the holidays.
It's also a good reminder that for many gifts, the setup doesn't stop once it's unwrapped and plugged in — there's often an accompanying app for that too.
