Colors of the iOS7 App Store

Yeah, the article quite a clear example of a blind application of statistical tools, the only useful thing being their idea to do quantitative design research. The top five is only a reasonable selection if the search is for patterns linking the top contenders per category. Trying to find indication of what positively influences a top ranking in a certain category without considering what those outside the top have done is astonishingly wrong.

And when you're showing the 5 dominant colors from the top 5 apps, you're just going to end up with the dominant color from each app. The best example of this is in Education, where the lime green of DuoLingo appears as one of the top 5 colors despite it being the only app with that color. If anything, if I were just looking at Luminosity, DuoLingo and Quizlet together I'd conclude that there isn't a dominant color for Education apps.

Personally, I saw it as an interesting study in what palettes people are choosing to represent the purpose of their applications. I wouldn't change your palette based on this, in fact, differentiation could help you to stand out.

When looking at social blue is overwhelming. I would go with something other than blue as it would obviously stand out in the listings.