It’s time for Apple to clean up the App Store. The App Store arms race is over - both iOS and Android are entrenched as platforms, and both platforms get all major apps eventually. For WWDC this year, Apple released a promotional video titled “The App Effect” that boasted over 1,500,000 applications in the App Store, with over 100 billion downloads of those applications. And the App Store has tremendous velocity, adding over 1,000 new apps per day. But there are an increasing number of “zombie applications” that remain on the store, abandoned, gumming up search results, impeding app discovery, and generally degrading the perceived quality of the App Store.

I performed a series of searches on the App Store earlier today. Here are just a few of the zombie apps I found.

Search term: “podcast”
11th result: Alarm Clock 4 Free
Last updated: Oct 2, 2013

Search term: “weather”
Top 25: NOAA Radar US - HD Weather Radar and Forecasts
Last updated: Oct 2, 2013

Search term: “books”
Top 50: Audio.books
Last updated: Sep 12, 2013

Search term: “photo”
Top 100: Wood Camera - Vintage Photo Editor
Last updated: Dec 18, 2013

Apple is consistent about moving developers forward, using mandatory SDK targets. The iOS 7 SDK has been mandatory since February 1st, 2014. But only for new application submissions and new application updates.

Apple no longer sells devices that support iOS 6. Apple no longer sells non-retina mobile devices. Applications that haven’t been updated for iOS 7 or for retina screens with @2x graphics should be removed from the App Store. These zombie apps hurt the overall quality of the App Store and impede app discovery, an already acute weakness of the App Store.

Apple has long censored the content of the App Store. Just last month, Apple was in the news for removing apps containing the Confederate flag. It’s time for Apple to filter out bad platform citizens not just based on content, but also on technical merit.