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Filed under: Software, iPhone, iPod touch

Millions of app store downloads everywhere

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Jan 7th, 2010

Last year was a big one for mobile downloads, according to a number of sources. A Quantcast mobile trends report says that mobile web activity grew 110% in the US throughout 2009, and of course Apple was responsible for most of that, with a 65% market share, 41% from the iPhone and the rest from the iPod touch. Apple's market share slightly dropped in 2009 (due to increasing competition), but it's still head and shoulders above everyone else.

App downloads are huge as well. Not only did Apple announce that three billion downloads, but Gameloft says they've reached 10 million paid downloads of apps by themselves, and developer Lima Sky (makers of Doodle Jump, one of our favorite games of 2009), says downloads skyrocketed after Christmas, with over 500,000 downloads of their app in December of 2009 alone.

The App Store is doing big business lately -- it's probably a safe bet to say that 2009 kicked off a golden age of mobile web activity. And all indications are that 2010 will be even more interesting.

Tags: apple, billion, christmas, doodle-jump, downloads, gameloft, iphone, ipod, million, mobile-web, quantcast, usage, web

Filed under: Apple, iPhone, App Store, SDK, iPod touch

Apple announces 2 billion downloads, 85,000 apps from the App Store

by Joachim Bean (RSS feed) on Sep 28th, 2009

Just after reaching 1 billion downloads five months ago, Apple announced this morning that the iPhone App Store has reached 2 billion downloads since its launch in July 2008. Also, Apple announced that 85,000 apps are available to download or buy from the App Store, and there are now over 125,000 registered iPhone developers with the iPhone Developer Program.

These apps are available now to the 50 million devices running the iPhone OS (iPhone/iPod touch), creating an ever-expanding group of users.

Tags: 2 billion, 2Billion, App Store, apps, AppStore, billion, developers

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iTS, Software, iTunes, Apple, iPhone, App Store

App Store on track to do a billion items by 2009

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Sep 15th, 2008


You read that right -- it took the iTunes Store a few years, but as Roughly Drafted has calculated, Apple's App Store is on track, even if growth stops right now, to hit a billion apps served up by 2009. Obviously not all of those are paid apps, but by any count, that's a ton of applications dumped onto iPhones and iPod touches around the world.

That said, the App Store is far from perfect -- Apple's approval process has come under fire lately for a lack of transparency, among other issues, and of course the iTunes Store didn't have the benefit of most of its content being free. Of course the App Store is working to get apps on phones, but there are lots of kinks to be worked out, including just how "open" Apple is letting the store be, questions of quality over the software that does make it in, and just whether it's worth developers' time to deliver these applications anyway.

Just as the iFund guys noted, however, we're only in the first few steps of a marathon here. There's a long way to go, but already, in terms of an iPhone software distribution system, the App Store is a huge success.

[via Ars]

Tags: 1-billion, app-store, apple, apples, approval, apps, billion, ifund, iphone, ipod-touch, roughly-drafted

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Apple Financial, Steve Jobs, Apple

Apple's $18 billion stash

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Feb 25th, 2008

Where's all that cash that Apple made from the iPhone and all those iPods, Macs, and iTunes downloads last year going? Why, right into Apple's mattress. According to the Financial Times, Apple currently has $18 billion sitting on their balance sheet, doing nothing much at all. And they're OK with that -- Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer recently said in the Q1 conference call that they like having that "flexibility." And after all, you never know when you might need to drop $18 billion on something important.

All that money doing nothing isn't so great for Apple's investors though, some of whom apparently want a piece of the pie. They might like to see dividends, stock buybacks, or even actual spending come out of that on Apple's part (later in the piece, I'm surprised to see that Apple only spends 3% of their sales on R&D, while Microsoft spends 14%). But no -- Apple is flush with cash from all their big sales numbers, and they want to apparently stay that way.

[Via Ars]

Tags: apple, billion, business, cash, earnings, financial, money, quarter, sales

Filed under: iTS, iTunes

NY Times talks to the iTunes Billionth Downloader

by Scott McNulty (RSS feed) on Feb 24th, 2006

The New York Times has a brief article profiling Alex Ostrovsky, the billionth downloader on iTunes. Turns out that he is 16 years old, doesn't buy things fro iTunes all that often (though with his new $10,000 iTunes card that is going to change), and he was in need of a new computer (but now has a 20 inch iMac).

Tags: alex ostrovsky, AlexOstrovsky, billion

Filed under: iTS, iTunes

iTunes Billion songs countdown

by Scott McNulty (RSS feed) on Feb 7th, 2006

Apple is counting down to the one billionth download from the iTunes Music Store, and as is the tradition they are having a contest. The person that downloads the one billionth song (or video, sadly only paid songs get you into the contest) gets:
  • 1 20-inch iMac
  • 10 60 gig iPods (5 white and 5 black)
  • 1 $10,000 iTunes Music Card (in US dollars which is good for any kind of download).
Not only does the person who downloads the billionth item get some goodies, Apple will be creating a scholarship to a world renowned music school in the name of the person who wins. There is a word for that kind of contest, boys and girls, and that word is sweet!

But that's not all, starting at 950,100,000 Apple will be giving away the following for every 100,000th song:
  • a 4 gig black iPod nano
  • $100 iTunes Music Store card
No purchase is necessary, you can just fill out a form to enter (limited to 25 a day).

Thanks, Aaron.

Tags: billion, contest, itunes

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