A Large-Scale Empirical Study on Software Reuse in Mobile Apps

In less than five years, the number of mobile apps has grown exponentially, with more than 1 million available in the largest mobile app stores. One explanation for this growth could be the adoption of well-proven software engineering practices--in particular, software reuse despite the often conjectured lack of training among mobile app developers. A study of hundreds of thousands of Android apps across 30 different categories found substantial software reuse, indicating that while these apps benefit from increased productivity, they're also more dependent on the quality of the apps and libraries that they reuse.