Filed under: Apple Financial, iPhone, iPod touch
App Store smashes the 100,000 app barrier and keeps on growing
In this morning's press release, Apple senior vice president for Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller noted that "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."
Schiller's statement was echoed by top executives from EA Mobile and Smule. EA Mobile's Travis Boatman, VP of Worldwide Studios, praised the App Store as an innovative marketplace to over 50 million iPhone and iPod touch owners, while Smule's CEO Jeff Smith took the perspective of a small, new development house that has skyrocketed to success. "With 10,000 downloads a day, worldwide customer response to our I Am T-Pain App has exceeded our wildest expectations," said Smith. "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.
By comparison, the Google Android Market had just over 10,000 apps as of early September, almost 65% of which were free. An analysis of iPhone and Android app purchases shows that iPhone users are more likely to purchase apps, while users of Android-based smartphones appear to like getting their software for free. Developers for the most part will go where the money is, and at this time, that appears to be the App Store.
[via Engadget]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tony said 11:35AM on 11-04-2009
Why are you calling this a "barrier"?! Was something standing in the way of that 100,000th app being posted? was it a challenge somehow different than the rest?
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Ben Y said 11:59AM on 11-04-2009
There's an effect, in physics, called the "Crap Barrier", wherein the more crap you pour at the same 3 overworked App-approvers in Bangalore, the more their productivity decreases. Once it was thought that at 99,999 apps the number of new crap apps seeking approval would overwhelm those App-approvers, and they would commit ritual suicide, rather than face reviewing the flood of "2 Hot 2 Handle Titties" apps.
So yes, the physics community is SHOCKED and needs to re-evaluate their models to find out how this happened.
Ben Y said 11:56AM on 11-04-2009
An app count is meaningless when many of those Apps are crap like web pages and public domain books drizzled with objective-C frosting.
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Adam S said 11:56AM on 11-04-2009
100,000 apps and still a crappy springboard and an App Store that makes it impossible to find anything that isn't already a best seller or featured in an ad.
Way to go, Apple.
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Jordan said 12:11PM on 11-04-2009
Is this good or bad?
If you want to talk about quantity of apps, then I guess it's good
But I think that's also the reason it's not good.
All this means is that there are lots of apps. But this also means that there are probably a lot, and I mean A LOT, of crappy crappy apps. Good apps take time to develop, everybody knows this. To all of a sudden have 100k apps means many of them were poorly written crap.
This also could be bad from a developer standpoint. With so many apps, how will people find mine? How will I make any money off of this? If I don't have the time or resources to pour into making a really really strong app, then I don't have a chance. Sure I could try, but reality is I need to eat, I need to make money. To invest in the app store isn't my best option right now.
I'm not sure what the right approach is, but I do know that if Apple keeps approving any stupid little thing, the app store is just going to keep getting junkier and junkier. It's almost like the way myspace is full of crappy ads everywhere and just looks like complete junk (or used to, not sure if it does anymore).
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FoxyOrb said 1:07PM on 11-04-2009
The App Store should have an option to view a searched result by list showing each app on one line with the full name of the application, average rating and number of ratings and pricing plus the possibility to export this list to say a spreadsheet.
Presently there is so much data and it is quite difficult to navigate in order to get the best app at the best price. Showing about 30 icons per screen view with abbreviated long names and the obligation to open every one is really not a fun experience.
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