thee3/step-counter-survey

In-app purchases, ratings and widgets of iPhone step counters (US App Store, 17 August 2026)

A hand-made survey of 18 iPhone step counter apps, read off their own App Store pages on 17 August 2026.

It exists because the one number people most want — what an app charges once you have installed it — is not available from Apple's search interface at all. It appears only on each app's own page, and only if you scroll to the In-App Purchases block.

There is no ranking and no score in this file. It is what the store showed on that date.

• Live page with the same data, in a table: https://angelstep.app/data
• Canonical JSON, always current: https://angelstep.app/data/step-counter-survey.json
• Canonical CSV: https://angelstep.app/data/step-counter-survey.csv

What is in it

file	what it is
step-counter-survey.json	the canonical record: metadata, method, licence, summary, and the 18 apps
step-counter-survey.csv	the same 18 rows, flat, for spreadsheets and notebooks

Columns

column	meaning
name	app name as listed on the US App Store
listed_in	which of our guides the app appears in (cute, simple, free)
ratings_count	number of ratings shown on the listing
rating_average	average rating shown on the listing
widget_per_description	the listing's own text mentions a widget — not that we verified one exists
lock_screen_per_description	the listing's own text mentions a lock screen widget
reads_health_per_description	the listing's own text says it reads Apple Health
last_updated	month of the last update shown on the listing
in_app_purchases	whether the listing shows an In-App Purchases block
prices_listed	the price range shown in that block

An empty cell means the store did not show it, which is not the same as no.

What the numbers say

• 13 apps had their purchases checked; 4 of them list no in-app purchases at all (Pedometer α, Plod, STEPPI, Steps — Simple Pedometer).
• Listed prices run from $0.99 to $49.99.
• 12 of 18 listings mention a widget in their own description — but only 6 of 18 mention a lock screen. On this evidence, "widget" on a store listing usually means the home screen alone.
• Ratings counts run from 0 to 291,037, median 1,267 — the category is a few large apps and a long tail of small ones.

Method, stated plainly

Each app's App Store page was opened and read by hand on 2026-08-17. Purchases come from the In-App Purchases block on that page; 'per its description' means the listing's own text says so, not that we verified the feature exists. The lock-screen column was read on 2026-08-19 from Apple's public listing data, matched to each app by name, rating count and last-updated month; in the same pass the widget and Health columns were re-read that way and agreed with the hand reading in every one of the 18 rows.

Absence in a description is not proof of absence in the app; it is what the maker chose to mention.

Region: US App Store. Date of reading: 17 August 2026 (2026-08-17).

Limits worth knowing before you cite this

• It is a snapshot. Prices, ratings and descriptions change; nothing here is re-checked automatically.
• It is 18 apps, not the whole category — those that appeared for the searches behind three buyer's guides.
• There is no ranking, on purpose. A ranking published by a participant in the market is an advertisement. The facts are Apple's; the compilation is ours.

Who made it

Collected by the people building Angel Step — a step counter for iPhone built around one number, with widgets on the home screen and the lock screen. https://angelstep.app

Where these rows are written out

• what step counters actually cost — the prices, per app, in a table
• how to choose one — what these numbers do and do not decide
• cute step counters — the nine that are pleasant to look at
• simple step counters — the nine that ask least of you
• steps to calories — the MET model written out, with the tables precomputed
• how far 10,000 steps is — distance by height, in a table you can read

Licence

CC BY 4.0 on the compilation, its structure and the described method. Not claimed: the underlying facts, which are Apple's public store listings.

Attribution: Angel Step, https://angelstep.app/data

Citation

Angel Step (2026). In-app purchases, ratings and widgets of iPhone step counters (US App Store, measured 2026-08-17). https://angelstep.app/data

Mirrors

https://angelstep.app/data is the canonical copy. The same files are mirrored on GitHub, Hugging Face, Kaggle.