There's been endless hype around generative AI this year, and app developers are clearly paying attention. AI-focused tools are running out Apple's App Store Chart Occupying top 10 rankings in almost every category, including education, productivity and photo editing. Opportunities are especially abundant for free graphics and design apps, a category that is positively saturated with AI content creation tools.
But quantity does not mean quality – and many of these apps are surprisingly bad. I'm using some of the most popular offerings to understand the state of AI tools as we head into 2025. And for every serious attempt to make AI useful, there seem to be many more designed to cash in on the hype: quietly paying off those they advertise behind expensive subscriptions and misrepresenting the results that users get. Can, even if the app works at all.
Almost half of the App Store Top 10 Graphics & Design Apps There's “AI” in the name, and three of them are all made by the same company – hubxAn app developer founded in 2022, based in Türkiye. Its an app, davinci aiAdvertised as an AI image generator with some photo editing features. Almost every tool is locked behind a $30 annual (or $5 weekly) subscription fee, and the free trial only unlocks a subpar text-to-image feature that lets you use unspecified versions of the Stable Diffusion and DALL-E AI models. Gives a choice between doing.
The images it produces are low-quality and resized or cropped incorrectly. In-app advertisements appear when you click on any link. The UI is unpleasant to navigate. if you to do Pay for the full version, you can't download any edited image without putting an ugly watermark on it. And yet, it's well up in the rankings of more recognizable creative platforms like Microsoft Designer, which has its own built-in text-to-image AI generator. Adobe Express is the only design-focused app in the same category that currently ranks above DaVinci AI.
The other two higher-ranking HUBX products I tested were just as lackluster: home ai The “interior design” app spits out hallucinatory images of rooms that are barely usable even as concept plans, and tattoo ai The app refused to work completely. Both apps feature paywalls and review pop-up reminders, similar to DaVinci AI. The App Store version history notes copied and pasted on all HUBX products also have no details.
Although all three apps have a surprisingly large number of five-star reviews Users reaction on social media and this app store comments Is extremely negative. A recurring complaint is that it is impossible to get customer service. HUBX never responded to my requests for comment.
Apps that clearly advertise AI features are highly attractive. according to sensor towerFour of the top 10 most downloaded iOS graphics and design apps in the US so far this year have “AI” somewhere in their title. That's actually two fewer than last year, but the most popular apps are booming. photoroom Downloads saw an increase of over 160 percent from last year. comparatively, photoshop express Downloads on iOS – which also include generative AI features – declined 21 percent during the same period.
There are no AI-focused creative apps All Too bad, but the saturation of the app market makes it harder to find good ones that use technology in more focused ways. apps like Google's magic editor And Adobe Photoshop has specific tools for removing unwanted objects from photos or inserting new objects in specific places. Smaller developers who provide similar features and do those tasks well are also climbing the app store rankings.
For example, photoroom and picsart ai – All-in-one graphic design apps like platforms like Canva and Adobe Express – are really great! They are ranked high for free “Photos & Videos” App Store category And offers the same types of features to instantly create online content using premade digital assets and templates, along with some AI-powered editing tools like automatic background and object removal.
Neither app surprised me, but they did what they advertised: the background removal features weren't as good as Canva's, but they got the job done, and object removal erased unwanted aspects of the photo, even though it wasn't Google's best option. Not reliable like magic editor. Both apps lock some of their more premium editing features and digital assets behind a $13 monthly subscription, which is pretty standard if you're being blunt about it — by comparison, individual Canva and Adobe Express subscriptions, respectively. Starting at $15 and $10 per month. ,
There's also a noticeable split between the iPhone and iPad charts – very few AI-focused names appear in the top 100 free Or The paid list for iPad, which includes a more diverse range of graphic design apps like Adobe Fresco, Clip Studio Paint, and Canva. And interestingly, the list of top paid iPhone apps look very similar. Sketching and 3D modeling platforms, premium reference materials for artists, and an abundance of tools that streamline typical creative tasks like removing backgrounds and resizing images.
The split shows that the spammy AI app phenomenon is a mass market that hasn't quite caught on with traditional photographers and illustrators who still want to use their tried-and-true apps. It also suggests that AI itself holds less appeal if users are expected to pay for it, which tracks with the creative AI apps that appear most often – custom tattoos, logo makers. and interior design – which are skilled services that usually require payment. People don't necessarily want to overcome the skills barrier; They want to remove the financials.
Using in-app fees to appear in the free category of an app store, and thereby attract a wider audience, is hardly a new thing. Mobile games have been exploiting this loophole for years – and what's happening with the creative AI market now sounds eerily familiar.