In a Pfeiffer's report titled "2013 App Store Maturity Shootout", Apple iOS App Store, Google Play (Apps) and Amazon Appstore were compared side by side.

Apple iOS App Store, Google Play (Apps) and Amazon Appstore were compared side by side in terms of four major categories - Search rating, Discovery Assistance, Evaluation Grid maturity Score (overall ranking and user experience fiction).

The comparison was made by Pfeiffer through its report titled "2013 App Store Maturity Shootout".

The overall results, when each of this mobile application store were tallied, showed that Apple iOS App Store topped the ranking with a score of 52.1 out of 100.;Google Play scored 40.9 and Amazon Appstore scored 34.1

Key Points of the report:

Search Rating

Amazon Appstore

- Search engine has the lowest score in benchmark: search operations typing mistake are unknown, there is no support for natural language search or for any advanced search options.

Google Play

- Has the highest score, yet, it completely lacks natural language search and surprisingly does not support advanced search criteria, focusing the range of search operations to specific criteria

Apple iOS App Store

- Search options are very limited; lacking support for even the simplest search operator and faring much less than Google on searches containing typos; natural language search is completely absent.

Discovery Assistance

Amazon Appstore

- Is relatively new and significantly lags behind Google and Apple in terms of overall available app, yet, offers somewhat more sophisticated structure and organization than Google.

Google Play

- Has been pushing its on-line market place for Android very hard for the past two years; yet in its current state it offers almost no informed guidance to help users find apps that are specifically tailored to their needs

Apple iOS App Store

- By far has the largest number of specifically selected groups of apps and over 3,000 specifically selected apps covering a wide range of interests and application areas.

Overall Rating

Amazon Appstore

- Remains limited in scope

Google Play

- Offers only very basic qualitative enhancements

Apple iOS App Store

- Ahead of the competition

User Experience Friction ( when device does not do what you expect it to do)

Amazon

- Highest score for its regional lock-in which does not all occur in Amazon traditional web sites.

Google Play

- Lowest User Experience Friction

Apple iOS App Store

- Highest in terms of usability issues and a somewhat overpowering app store structure

According to the report, Apple iOS App Store should improve as a search destination where users can learn more about its applications and trends in the market.

"Current app stores do not fully reflect the breadth and richness of apps that are out there. They work fine if all you are interested in is the next bestselling game. If, on the other hand, you are talking about a truly original app - one that will drive the platform forward if it gets widely used - (then) the chances of being discovered are slim."

Pfeiffer uses its Apple iOS App Store, Google Play (Apps) and Amazon Appstore "2013 App Store Reference Definition" in order to come up with this comprehensive report.

"2013 App Store Reference Definition" is an idealized set of features for a mature, sophisticated app store.