App Store: 100,000 apps and counting

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 05 November 2009 01:17

Business IT - Technology

Apple's App Store now carries more than 100,000 applications for the iPhone and iPod touch, and there have been more than 2 billion downloads.

The App Store now offers more than 100,000 applications to iPhone and iPod touch owners in 77 countries.

According to Apple officials, a tally of 2 billion downloads means the App Store is still the world's most popular outlet of its type.

2 billion is also the number of push notifications sent to apps, even though this feature only arrived in iPhone OS 3.0 earlier this year.

"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," added Schiller.

Two of the App Store's poster children spoke warmly of the channel.

"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."

Smule is best known for its Ocarina music app, but that's not the only arrow in its quiver. "With 10,000 downloads a day, worldwide customer response to our I Am T-Pain app has exceeded our wildest expectations," said CEO Jeff 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," he added.

The App Store opened in mid-2008 when iPhone OS 2.0 was released.