Apple touts App Store milestones for 5th anniversary
Marking the fifth anniversary of the iPhone App Store, Apple has sent a poster to members of the press marking the many milestones the digital download destination has seen over its first half-decade.
A picture of the poster was posted online on Wednesday by Tim Bradshaw, a reporter with the Financial Times. The actual anniversary will fall in one week, on July 10.
It was that same day in 2008 that the iPhone App Store debuted with more than 500 apps. The App Store opening coincided with the launch of the second-generation iPhone, dubbed iPhone 3G.
Today, there are more than 850,000 applications on the App Store, and the library has also expanded to a new product lineup, the iPad. There are 350,000 native iPad applications also available on the App Store.
Apple's digital storefront achieved its 50 billionth download in May. To put the growth in perspective, the App Store reached just 1 billion downloads in 2009, while the 10 billionth download came in 2011.
The poster sent out by Apple touts some of the most popular choices on the App Store, including ames like Angry Birds, Temple Run and Fruit Ninja; streaming services Netflix and HBO Go; and other options like Time Magazine and Paper.
Also touted by Apple is the amount of money paid to developers to date ??more than $10 billion. One study released last week found that iPhone applications need to earn $47,000 per day to crack the top 10 grossing options on the App Store.
A picture of the poster was posted online on Wednesday by Tim Bradshaw, a reporter with the Financial Times. The actual anniversary will fall in one week, on July 10.
It was that same day in 2008 that the iPhone App Store debuted with more than 500 apps. The App Store opening coincided with the launch of the second-generation iPhone, dubbed iPhone 3G.
Today, there are more than 850,000 applications on the App Store, and the library has also expanded to a new product lineup, the iPad. There are 350,000 native iPad applications also available on the App Store.
Apple's digital storefront achieved its 50 billionth download in May. To put the growth in perspective, the App Store reached just 1 billion downloads in 2009, while the 10 billionth download came in 2011.
The poster sent out by Apple touts some of the most popular choices on the App Store, including ames like Angry Birds, Temple Run and Fruit Ninja; streaming services Netflix and HBO Go; and other options like Time Magazine and Paper.
Also touted by Apple is the amount of money paid to developers to date ??more than $10 billion. One study released last week found that iPhone applications need to earn $47,000 per day to crack the top 10 grossing options on the App Store.
Comments
Still, happy anniversary Apple.
Remember when Steve wanted iPhone developers to only make web apps? That seems like it was ages ago.
Good thing he changed his mind about letting third-party developers create native apps. I doubt anyone at the time could've imagined the wild success the app store would turn out to be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by am8449
Remember when Steve wanted iPhone developers to only make web apps? That seems like it was ages ago.
Good thing he changed his mind about letting third-party developers create native apps. I doubt anyone at the time could've imagined the wild success the app store would turn out to be.
Who could have imagined that the app store would actually DRIVE sales of the iPhone and iPad in its time as well.
It's not the iDevice specs that matter, its the ecosystem...!!
Remember the olden days when no one wanted to write programs for Apple products because all the money was in writing for PCs???
And now Microsoft has to bribe programmers to write something... anything... for the MS products. It's enough to cause monkeys to dance and chairs to fly.
'Hundreds of thousands of endless possibilities' sounds a little off to me. Endless possibilities itself indicates infinite possibilities. Sounds like something that sounds clever but isn't really that clever when you think about it.
Still, fascinating numbers and +1 for PhilBoogie's request of having better search and filter options.
He didn't; it was Art & Phil. From the bio:
The apps phenomenon began with the iPhone. When it first came out in early 2007, there were no apps you could buy from outside developers, and Jobs initially resisted allowing them. He didn’t want outsiders to create applications for the iPhone that could mess it up, infect it with viruses, or pollute its integrity.
Board member Art Levinson was among those pushing to allow iPhone apps. “I called him a half dozen times to lobby for the potential of the apps,” he recalled. If Apple didn’t allow them, indeed encourage them, another smartphone maker would, giving itself a competitive advantage. Apple’s marketing chief Phil Schiller agreed. “I couldn’t imagine that we would create something as powerful as the iPhone and not empower developers to make lots of apps,” he recalled. “I knew customers would love them.” From the outside, the venture capitalist John Doerr argued that permitting apps would spawn a profusion of new entrepreneurs who would create new services.
Jobs at first quashed the discussion, partly because he felt his team did not have the bandwidth to figure out all of the complexities that would be involved in policing third-party app developers. He wanted focus. “So he didn’t want to talk about it,” said Schiller. But as soon as the iPhone was launched, he was willing to hear the debate. “Every time the conversation happened, Steve seemed a little more open,” said Levinson. There were freewheeling discussions at four board meetings.
Jobs soon figured out that there was a way to have the best of both worlds. He would permit outsiders to write apps, but they would have to meet strict standards, be tested and approved by Apple, and be sold only through the iTunes Store. It was a way to reap the advantage of empowering thousands of software developers while retaining enough control to protect the integrity of the iPhone and the simplicity of the customer experience. “It was an absolutely magical solution that hit the sweet spot,” said Levinson. “It gave us the benefits of openness while retaining end-to-end control.”
But it always helps that, on release, each iDevice is the fastest product on the market in its category.