App Store on track to do a BILLION items by 2009

[Wondermonkey]

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 TUAW.

[Crippler]

And how many of those BILLION turds will actually be useful, worth owning pieces of software? It just seems like it's #s are getting inflated with tons of worthless shovel ware.

[Wondermonkey]

Originally Posted by Crippler

And how many of those BILLION turds will actually be useful, worth owning pieces of software? It just seems like it's #s are getting inflated with tons of worthless shovel ware.

1,567,287 is the official number of useful apps. With over 700 games to choose from, I'm going to guess that a lot of them are games, although there are some really great and helpful apps out there as well.

Also:

[Edit: to clarify, Apple first announced selling 10 million apps in the first 3 days, then announced 60 million downloads July 11, and most recently announced on September 9 “more than” 100 million downloads. The graphic above was corrected to show this. iPhone app sales compared to iTunes Store music has actually been four times greater at the two month milestone.]

[KEEZY]

That's crazy ish! I'm glad the App Store is doing well... hopefully they'll clear up some of their problems.

In addition to Crips point, you would think that the number of apps will start to decrease over time, and it may be too early to trend. I would think that they'll start running out of App ideas before long, or at least the amount of ideas will decrease over time.

I hope they implement something similar to what MS does with the Marketplace. They don't want the Store to get clogged with crap, so hopefully there is a phase-out every once in a hwhile.

Cool hwhip.

[dmiller68]

So you are talking a Billion downloads... That is not the big of a deal really. Of coarse a persentage of those will be purchased apps which is cool for Apple I'm sure they are making a nice percent off each sell.

mosh.nokia.com which is our app store has had almost 78m downloads with very little advertising this is over 7-8 months maybe a little longer.

[Wondermonkey]

Originally Posted by dmiller68

mosh.nokia.com which is our app store has had almost 78m downloads with very little advertising this is over 7-8 months maybe a little longer.

Yes, downloads.

3 days = 10 million downloads
3 months = Over 100 million dlownloads

For comparison, it's ten times greater at launch than the iTunes Store song sales (10 million apps in three days vs 1 million songs in the first 5 days) and four times as great as iTunes music sales in its first two months (100 million apps vs 25 million songs).

[Quo]

Clearly, Apple has a much bigger penis.

[Wondermonkey]

ten times greater at launch. This is before action even!

[dmiller68]

Originally Posted by Wondermonkey

Yes, downloads.

3 days = 10 million downloads
3 months = Over 100 million dlownloads

For comparison, it's ten times greater at launch than the iTunes Store song sales (10 million apps in three days vs 1 million songs in the first 5 days) and four times as great as iTunes music sales in its first two months (100 million apps vs 25 million songs).

Yes, but they only give 1 music download away for free a week. So your going to have a skewed ratio. If they had a few 1000 free songs I bet they would have a billion music downloads. I bet if you look at the real numbers the free apps make up the majority of the downloads. I'm not saying it isn't cool that they are having success just that downloads from media services are always going to be huge.

Nokia's Music service is expected to hit somewhere between 50-100m a month of music downloads the first month they implement the all you can download music service.

[Wondermonkey]

Considering so many of the great ones are free, I'd bet most of them are free downloads.

Even if growth hits a plateau today and sales stay where they are right now, by next year Apple will have sold a half billion iPhone apps (bringing in around a half billion dollars of revenue), before the Windows Mobile 7 Skymarket launches. Of course, Apple’s mobile software sales are not likely to remain at 40 million per month, as its historical iTunes song sales indicate.

They will not be without their competition though, more from the article...

Apple’s iTunes sells music, video and mobile software at low prices to lubricate the company’s hardware sales.

Microsoft Skymarket will be attempting to sell mobile software at a significant profit, and hopes sales will enhance its Windows Mobile platform, even though current WiMo software sales have done poorly.

Google Android Market is hoping to largely give software away and offer some ways to sell software to users at some point, in an effort to enhance its entire platform. The Linux desktop market has so far seen nearly zero commercial software, although there is a variety of DIY software packages.

T-Mobile will be opening a mobile software store that looks a lot like the record labels’ failed attempts to sell their music directly to consumers, as well as resembling Verizon’s BREW store, which attempts to rip off users on the same scale as wireless bills.

Nokia’s Ovi will have a lot in common with Sony’s failed Connect music store: software from a hardware company that doesn’t do software well.

Sit back and enjoy the fireworks. You already know which horse I’m betting on.

[KEEZY]

Balls, I was thinking a billion applications, which is ridiculous if you think about it. My faults.

LOL, I love the description of the T-Mobile store. God damn that article is bias though!

P.S. - So MS is releasing a self-aware AI to sell music? Did Sarah Connor teach us nothing????

[dmiller68]

I'm not saying itunes is not great it is much like Flickr the target of all other services. However, Nokia does have it's world wide market and brand to push. Nokia has given up for the most part on the US market because in a world view the US is irrelevant from a growth perspective and the carriers suck. The real markets are else where. I agree that Nokia hasn't been very good at the web services thing and we are entering the market late. However, this is why they went out and bought companies both big and small to fix this. I'm glad your backing the company you believe in. I'm backing the company that pays my bills.

Top Brands in the world:

1 Coca-Cola
2 Microsoft
3 IBM
4 GE
5 Nokia
33 Apple

http://www.businessweek.com/pdfs/200...obalbrands.pdf

[Wondermonkey]

Originally Posted by KEEZY

P.S. - So MS is releasing a self-aware AI to sell music? Did Sarah Connor teach us nothing????

She's dead, depending on what story arc you follow. They've learned nothing from her. NOTHING!

John Connor will save us from automated MP3 sales though, I've seen the future, and we're safe.

Originally Posted by dmiller68

I'm glad your backing the company you believe in. I'm backing the company that pays my bills.

That only makes you an indentured servant, and me a freelancer. However you're happy to live is fine by me.

[dmiller68]

Originally Posted by Wondermonkey

That only makes you an indentured servant, and me a freelancer. However you're happy to live is fine by me.

Humm... You got me there.

If you want to peek at the music store for the heck of it you can check it out at Download Music Online or from your mobile with Nokia Music Store

They haven't launched the US yet.... oops I guess it doesn't give you a good look there either. I have a UK account so it looks different for me.