Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, unless you are an app developer
For every two mobile apps released, one is a clone of an existing app. However, new research published in the INFORMS journal Information Systems Research shows the success of the original app is not always adversely affected by the creation of clone apps. In fact, the study, which was conducted by Carnegie Mellon University researchers, found that whether the copycat app increases or decreases the number of downloads of the original is dependent upon the quality of the copy.