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.