Apple announces App Store offerings top 100,000

[AppleInsider]

Apple Wednesday announced that more than 100,000 applications are now available on its App Store for the iPhone and iPod touch, crossing the milestone less than a year and a half after its debut.

"The App Store, now with over 100,000 applications available, is clearly a major differentiator for millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers around the world," said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "The iPhone SDK created the first great platform for mobile applications and our customers are loving all of the amazing apps our developers are creating."

The App Store serves customers in 77 countries with apps in 20 categories, including games, business, news, sports, health, reference and travel. In September, Apple announced that App Store users have downloaded over two billion apps, continuing to make it the world’s most popular applications store.

"The App Store has forever changed the mobile gaming industry and continues to improve," said Travis Boatman, vice president of Worldwide Studios, EA Mobile. "With a global reach of over 50 million iPhone and iPod touch users, the App Store has allowed us to develop high quality EA games that have been a huge success with customers."

In September, Apple debuted the Genius recommendation feature to help users sort through the plethora of options on the App Store. iTunes 9 has also allowed users to sort and manage their iPhone and iPod touch applications more easily. This summer, the hardware maker also added keywords to software to allow for easier search.

Apple noted Wednesday that it continues to improve search and discovery with new features including App Store Essentials selections, sub category listings and more valuable customer reviews. It said developers have been pleased with the results.

"With 10,000 downloads a day, worldwide customer response to our I Am T-Pain App has exceeded our wildest expectations," said Jeff Smith, CEO of Smule. "The App Store has given us a unique opportunity to create and grow a very successful business, and we’re looking forward to an exciting future."



This summer, iPhone OS 3.0 was released, bringing over 100 new features to the iPhone and iPod touch, including Cut, Copy and Paste; MMS; landscape view for Mail, Text and Notes; stereo Bluetooth; shake to shuffle; parental controls; automatic login at Wi-Fi hot spots and Push Notifications. Apple said the new features have been popular with customers, with more than two billion Push Notifications sent to apps available from the App Store.

The company also noted that the recently introduced In App Purchase feature extended to free applications means leading developers will now be able to offer customers the choice of buying content, subscriptions and digital services from directly inside their apps.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[Quadra 610]

That's about 100,000 reasons you can't stop the iPhone's momentum.

[christopher126]

What an unequivocal success story the App store is.

Could this be the future for all Software distribution? Not just Mobile SW, but computer SW?

Imagine the same system on the AppleTV platform?

Is this what the $1 billion Apple server farm in NC is for?

I know so many questions and no answers!

[christopher126]

Originally Posted by Quadra 610

That's about 100,000 reasons you can't stop the iPhone's momentum.

Exactly, Quad!

I just traded up to a 3Gs from my 1st gen iPhone. Took a dozen videos clips of a walk round an Arboretum. Came home, opened iMovie for the first time, read no iMovie instructions, viewed no iMovie instructional videos and put all the clips together, synced it to AppleTV and watched it on my widescreen TV in about 20 minutes!

Man oh man, my girlfriend thinks I'm a genius!

Could never have done this on a RIM, MS, Palm, Nokia product! It's the 'Apple Ecosystem,' Baby!

PS. Went mountain climbing and a bee was bothering me...opened my 'anti-mosquito' App on the 3Gs ('squirts' out a high frequency to the bee) and it went away!

[Quadra 610]

Originally Posted by christopher126

Exactly, Quad!

I just traded up to a 3Gs from my 1st gen iPhone. Took a dozen videos clips of a walk round an Arboretum. Came home, opened iMovie for the first time, read no iMovie instructions, viewed no iMovie instructional videos and put all the clips together, synced it to AppleTV and watched it on my widescreen TV in about 20 minutes!

Man oh man, my girlfriend thinks I'm a genius!

Could never have done this on a RIM, MS, Palm, Nokia product! It's the 'Apple Ecosystem,' Baby!

PS. Went mountain climbing and a bee was bothering me...opened my 'anti-mosquito' App on the 3Gs ('squirts' out a high frequency to the bee) and it went away!

Some people say that that app actually works. Scary.

[camroidv27]

Originally Posted by christopher126

What an unequivocal success story the App store is.

Could this be the future for all Software distribution? Not just Mobile SW, but computer SW?
:

I really hope not! Personally, I like to have a hard copy of my SW installs. Yes, I could burn the software to an optical disk that I download (in fact, I do that and store it away.) Secondly, what happens if you want to buy a peice of software when you are out on the road, say for an important business meeting and you have no internet connection? Or how about when (since most want to go this way) you end up having a tiered or pay-per-gig plan with your ISP?

Downsides to optical / hard copy media: it can get damaged and destroyed. Backups of important software disks are necessary. Making those backups can be difficult.

And what happens if Apple decides to release the XApp Store? Will devs have to jump through hoops to get their software approved? ("Adium was not approved for following reason: Mimics built-in functionality of OS X: iChat") Or will it be something more like Linux where we have community maintained repositories? I sure hope its not Apple Maintained... It could take a month before a computer App shows up on the XApp Store!

[teckstud]

Why is Ms Pac Man considered an app?
Ever hear someone say "Oh I just bought this really great point and shoot app for my PS3."

[christopher126]

Originally Posted by camroidv27

I really hope not! Personally, I like to have a hard copy of my SW installs. Yes, I could burn the software to an optical disk that I download (in fact, I do that and store it away.) Secondly, what happens if you want to buy a peice of software when you are out on the road, say for an important business meeting and you have no internet connection? Or how about when (since most want to go this way) you end up having a tiered or pay-per-gig plan with your ISP?

Downsides to optical / hard copy media: it can get damaged and destroyed. Backups of important software disks are necessary. Making those backups can be difficult.

And what happens if Apple decides to release the XApp Store? Will devs have to jump through hoops to get their software approved? Or will it be something more like Linux where we have community maintained repositories? I sure hope its not Apple Maintained... It could take a month before a computer App shows up on the XApp Store!

All good points, Camroid. But I really think Apple 'hates' physical media, discs, boxes, shipping, storing, etc. Not to mention the physical drives themselves! If anyone can figure out how to do it successfully, it will be Apple. With the usual hiccups and mis-steps, Think MobileMe, here.

Best.

[christopher126]

Originally Posted by Quadra 610

Some people say that that app actually works. Scary.

Not as scary as that little bee! I hate bees!

[camroidv27]

Originally Posted by christopher126

All good points, Camroid. But I really think Apple 'hates' physical media, discs, boxes, shipping, storing, etc. Not to mention the physical drives themselves! If anyone can figure out how to do it successfully, it will be Apple. With the usual hiccups and mis-steps, Think MobileMe, here.

Best.

Physical drives, especially optical, are currently the bane of Apple. I can tell they want them gone to get better battery life and to decrease the "thinness" of their machines. The MacBook Air is a signal to this change... along with the newest MacMini Server. Perhaps SD cards will be the new Hard Medium as some here have predicted?

To take this even further... I can see an "in-place-over-the-air" OS upgrade path coming from Apple... with no optical media, it could be a way to keep the Hackers at bay (which sadly, would make it so I couldn't upgrade my hackintosh)

[xwiredtva]

The "App Store" is the new walmart.

I wonder how many of those are actually worth getting, worth paying for, and how many go unnoticed.

[christopher126]

Originally Posted by camroidv27

Physical drives, especially optical, are currently the bane of Apple. I can tell they want them gone to get better battery life and to decrease the "thinness" of their machines. The MacBook Air is a signal to this change... along with the newest MacMini Server. Perhaps SD cards will be the new Hard Medium as some here have predicted?

To take this even further... I can see an "in-place-over-the-air" OS upgrade path coming from Apple... with no optical media, it could be a way to keep the Hackers at bay (which sadly, would make it so I couldn't upgrade my hackintosh)

Agreed!

[Quadra 610]

Originally Posted by xwiredtva

The "App Store" is the new walmart.

I wonder how many of those are actually worth getting, worth paying for, and how many go unnoticed.

"Top Paid", "Top Free", "Top Grossing", for each category. Use the filters. If it's a "Top" app in that category, that's your first clue that it's worth looking into.

[christopher126]

Originally Posted by xwiredtva

The "App Store" is the new walmart.
.

But unlike Walmart, in the App store, you don't have to 'mingle' with the 'great unwashed!'

[ghostface147]

100,000 apps, 85% percent garbage apps. Still, very impressive.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by ghostface147

100,000 apps, 85% percent garbage apps. Still, very impressive.

I only use 10 apps, so from that perspective I guess that means 99.9999% are worthless. Good thing it’s not based on one person’s usage. One man’s junk is another man’s jewel.

After all these years an Apple product has an excessive offering and all we hear are complaints that “they are all fart apps and tip calculators” (paraphrasing one of the resident trolls here). You;d think people would be happy to have such a variety of versatile apps, and it’s only the beginning.

[AsianBob]

Originally Posted by christopher126

Exactly, Quad!

I just traded up to a 3Gs from my 1st gen iPhone. Took a dozen videos clips of a walk round an Arboretum. Came home, opened iMovie for the first time, read no iMovie instructions, viewed no iMovie instructional videos and put all the clips together, synced it to AppleTV and watched it on my widescreen TV in about 20 minutes!

Man oh man, my girlfriend thinks I'm a genius!

Could never have done this on a RIM, MS, Palm, Nokia product! It's the 'Apple Ecosystem,' Baby!

PS. Went mountain climbing and a bee was bothering me...opened my 'anti-mosquito' App on the 3Gs ('squirts' out a high frequency to the bee) and it went away!

I wouldn't go as far as to say never. More difficult, yes. Apple's competition are releasing better ways for devs to create for their systems. I see that you left Android off your list... Interesting.

But I applaud the 100,000 apps (minus however many are unsuccessful clones, but are still lingering around the App Store...). Just means that much more apps that can be ported to other systems!

[success]

with about 1% being of any use

[ivan.rnn01]

Yeah. Momentum. I see.
I bought "PanCamera" app some months ago. It was not free app, I paid, AFAIR. I was happy. It was exactly what I needed. I took it with me onto my trip and made effortlessly a lot of on-road panoramas. Simply the best thing on the store.
A week ago the app just stopped to load. With no explanations. Then it quietly disappeared from the store.
Yet, the crap survives. Momentum.

[Postulant]

Love the App Store.

Apps I use every day:

Sportacular
Dictionary
Convertbot
Pandora
BeeJiveIM
Remote for my AppleTV
Holy Bible

[camroidv27]

Originally Posted by solipsism

After all these years an Apple product has an excessive offering and all we hear are complaints that “they are all fart apps and tip calculators” (paraphrasing one of the resident trolls here). You;d think people would be happy to have such a variety of versatile apps, and it’s only the beginning.

My biggest complaint is in the gaming part of the App Store, are all the "+10 point" apps for different RPG style games since they clutter up the App Store something fierce. These aren't apps, they are buy points. I wish they would be removed and built into the original game's App.

But you do have to admit, there are plenty of redundant (which is fine, its called competition) apps, and even more so there are many useless "try-to-get-a-buck" apps (which is allowed, but stupid since so many have no real use other than to get the programmer a small profit off of other's stupidity).

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by solipsism

After all these years an Apple product has an excessive offering and all we hear are complaints that “they are all fart apps and tip calculators” (paraphrasing one of the resident trolls here). You;d think people would be happy to have such a variety of versatile apps, and it’s only the beginning.

I'd be happy to run more than one app at a time- even if it's the fart and the iBeer app.

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by christopher126

But unlike Walmart, in the App store, you don't have to 'mingle' with the 'great unwashed!'

But like Walmart, they are censored.

[extremeskater]

Originally Posted by solipsism

I only use 10 apps, so from that perspective I guess that means 99.9999% are worthless. Good thing it’s not based on one person’s usage. One man’s junk is another man’s jewel.

After all these years an Apple product has an excessive offering and all we hear are complaints that “they are all fart apps and tip calculators” (paraphrasing one of the resident trolls here). You;d think people would be happy to have such a variety of versatile apps, and it’s only the beginning.

I can gift you the 'track your poop'" or "kissing booth" app for Christmas. Or the ever fav "Pour1out" apps where you can simulate dumping out a 40oz.

[chronster]

I saw a security guard for a garage in boston walking around with an ipod touch which was getting a live video feed from all the cameras in the garage. He could view them all at once on a single screen, tap on one to view the live feed, then actually move the camera by dragging the screen.

It. was. the COOLEST!

I acted a little gay for it, asking him to show me. He says everyone gets a kick out of it.

Originally Posted by Quadra 610

"Top Paid", "Top Free", "Top Grossing", for each category. Use the filters. If it's a "Top" app in that category, that's your first clue that it's worth looking into.

Undeniable logic ladies and gentlemen. Quadra is a true genius

[extremeskater]

Originally Posted by teckstud

I'd be happy to run more than one app at a time- even if it's the fart and the iBeer app.

If you have the iBeer app you really need to compliment it with the Pour1out app.

[Postulant]

Originally Posted by solipsism

After all these years an Apple product has an excessive offering and all we hear are complaints that “they are all fart apps and tip calculators” (paraphrasing one of the resident trolls here). You;d think people would be happy to have such a variety of versatile apps, and it’s only the beginning.

Exactly. Could you imagine someone walking into a Grocery store and complaining about all the goods they aren't going to buy? "This store is nice, but there is too much to choose from. I only like 1% of the stuff in here."

- People are strange.

[chronster]

Originally Posted by success

with about 1% being of any use

Doesn't matter if it's an app like I described above or an app that just makes a fart noise with a button, they are saying there are 100,000 apps now.

It's actually a little telling of how overwhelming the app store can be and how competitive it's gotten.

I thought this image was funny:

There's actually magazines dedicating a lot of content towards these apps.

[chronster]

Originally Posted by Postulant

Exactly. Could you imagine someone walking into a Grocery store and complaining about all the goods they aren't going to buy? "This store is nice, but there is too much to choose from. I only like 1% of the stuff in here."

- People are strange.

Actually in your analogy, it might be something like "This grocery store is nice, but the coco-puffs and turkeys are being overwhelmed by the abundant supply of toilet paper and bouncy balls.... Or something lol

[Postulant]

Originally Posted by chronster

Actually in your analogy, it might be something like "This grocery store is nice, but the coco-puffs and turkeys are being overwhelmed by the abundant supply of toilet paper and bouncy balls.... Or something lol

lol...

[anonymouse]

Originally Posted by Quadra 610

"Top Paid", "Top Free", "Top Grossing", for each category. Use the filters. If it's a "Top" app in that category, that's your first clue that it's worth looking into.

Now, if only they would introduce a "Top Rated", especially combined with (keyword) search, that would be really useful. The current "Top ..." categories are useful for identifying stuff that may be generally useful, but when what you are looking for doesn't make the "Top ..." lists, it can be hard to wade through stuff, and the "Genius" feature isn't very useful at all, to me, at least.

[camroidv27]

Originally Posted by chronster

Actually in your analogy, it might be something like "This grocery store is nice, but the coco-puffs and turkeys are being overwhelmed by the abundant supply of toilet paper and bouncy balls.... Or something lol

Yes, its that darn toilet paper I have to dig through to find the Turkey, and stupid bouncy balls getting mixed in with the coco-puffs... it makes it hard to chew.

[NeilM]

Originally Posted by ghostface147

100,000 apps, 85% percent garbage apps. Still, very impressive.

Yeah, and 85% might be on the low side...

If only it was easier to cut through the crap in the app store.

[Robodude]

I've got 8 apps on mine, although have tried out plenty more. Checking train times and the tube map on the phone has saved my bacon more than once... and it makes life easier. Look forward to trying out some of the augmented reality apps should my next phone be the 3GS.

Garbage or not, 100,000 is plenty to choose from with apps useful for just about anything. Well, except finding the right apps!

[TenoBell]

Do the same things you do to cut through the crap for Mac and for Windows. Crap software wasn't invented with the iPhone.

Originally Posted by NeilM

Yeah, and 85% might be on the low side...

If only it was easier to cut through the crap in the app store.

[teckstud]

There are probably 10% real apps. The rest are games and widgets.

[TenoBell]

You are now arguing semantics and nomenclature. Applications is a generic term.

Originally Posted by teckstud

There are probably 10% real apps. The rest are games and widgets.

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by TenoBell

You are now arguing semantics and nomenclature. Applications is a generic term.

I'm not arguing anything- I'm just stating a fact.

[addabox]

Originally Posted by teckstud

I'm not arguing anything- I'm just stating a fact.

"Probably 10%", a figure you pulled out of your ass, if a "fact"?

On this thread we've seen "1% useful", "85% worthless", and "probably 10% real" (whatever that means).

The "fact" is, no one throwing these figures around have the faintest idea what percentage of the apps in the app store are "useful", or even by what metric useful would be defined.

Sure, there are a lot of silly or trivial apps. That's true for every platform. It's certainly true for PCs, where once upon a time having a shitload of apps was considered a big competitive advantage over the Mac.

At any rate, pick whatever percentage good/bad you want. As the absolute number of apps increase, the number of good apps increase. At some point, it doesn't matter how many are of no interest to one particular buyer, when even a small percentage of the available apps outnumber the entire catalog on any other platform.

[DKWalsh4]

Originally Posted by teckstud

I'm not arguing anything- I'm just stating a fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applica...28computing%29

Please see section at the bottom: Content Access Software.