Cupertino (CA) - As was indicated by a huge banner emerging today on Apple's web site, iPhone users have now downloaded 500 million applications "in every category from games to business." In addition, the App Store now features some 15,000 applications, eclipsing the offerings on rival mobile application stores by a large margin - including Google's Android, RIM's store and third-party applications for the Windows Mobile platform. The new data point also shows that the application store has doubled its average download rate to nearly 5 million downloads per day, up from 2.2 million in early December, 2008.
This new milestone is a remarkable achievement by any stretch, and it comes barely six months after the App Store opened for business back on July 11, 2008, with only 500 native applications for iPhone and iPod touch. Since then, the store has been rising steadily with a notable surge ahead of the holiday season that, so far, shows no signs of dying down. On the contrary, it's surging.
It took the App Store two months after launching to reach the first 100 million downloads with an additional 2,200 applications, then totaling 3,000. That figure translates to an average daily download rate of 2.5 million during launch weekend, and 1.6 million in the weeks ahead. The last time we learned about App Store milestone was via Apple's iPhone ad that appeared in the New York Times on December 5, 2008.
Apple said in the fine print of the December 5th ad that the App Store had zoomed past 300 million downloads and 10,000 applications in total. Previously, Steve Jobs said during a financial call with investors on October 21, 2008, that users would have reached the 200 million download mark the following day.
These data points means that in the 45 days between October 22 and December 5 the App Store sent out 100 million new downloads, representing an average 2.2 million daily downloads. The latest download figures published today shows that App Store has now doubled that rate. And in the most recent 42 days (between December 5 and January 16) the App Store added another 200 million downloads for an average daily download rate of 4.76 million.
This new milestone is a remarkable achievement by any stretch, and it comes barely six months after the App Store opened for business back on July 11, 2008, with only 500 native applications for iPhone and iPod touch. Since then, the store has been rising steadily with a notable surge ahead of the holiday season that, so far, shows no signs of dying down. On the contrary, it's surging.
It took the App Store two months after launching to reach the first 100 million downloads with an additional 2,200 applications, then totaling 3,000. That figure translates to an average daily download rate of 2.5 million during launch weekend, and 1.6 million in the weeks ahead. The last time we learned about App Store milestone was via Apple's iPhone ad that appeared in the New York Times on December 5, 2008.
Apple said in the fine print of the December 5th ad that the App Store had zoomed past 300 million downloads and 10,000 applications in total. Previously, Steve Jobs said during a financial call with investors on October 21, 2008, that users would have reached the 200 million download mark the following day.
These data points means that in the 45 days between October 22 and December 5 the App Store sent out 100 million new downloads, representing an average 2.2 million daily downloads. The latest download figures published today shows that App Store has now doubled that rate. And in the most recent 42 days (between December 5 and January 16) the App Store added another 200 million downloads for an average daily download rate of 4.76 million.