Apple Approaches 1 Billion Downloads from App Store

Friday Apple (AAPL) announced that it was closing in on its whopping 1 Billionth application download from the App Store, which now features over 25,000 apps built by thousands of developers. In honor of the milestone, Apple has also posted an updated version of the store’s most popular apps ever (iTunes link) - something they’ve done only once before, at the end of 2008. The list includes such popular mainstays as Facebook, Koi Pond, and Shazam, allowing the millions of new iPhone owners to discover favorites of months gone by. It’s a shame this list will probably be shortlived.

This isn’t an accident. One attribute that has helped the App Store reach its upcoming billion download milestone so quickly is the fact that its featured App Lists are constantly churning - even the most popular applications probably won’t be on the top lists a few weeks down the line. This ensures that users who pop into the store will always have some new, quality apps to try out, boosting downloads and giving new applications a chance to shine.

But it can also be frustrating for new iPhone owners, who visit the store unsure of what they should download. This isn’t to say they’ll leave empty handed - there’s always a variety of great apps being showcased on the App Store. But the classics that everyone else already has, like Tap Tap Revenge, Ocarina, and Shazam often aren’t featured on the App Store’s homescreen any more, so new users might miss out on them. Apple has made progress since I wrote about this issue last August, now allowing users to browse through apps by category, each of which features its own top lists. But the need for a more readily available all-time leaderboard still remains.

To give an idea of how popular these applications have been, ComScore recently reported that 32% of all iPhones and iPod Touches have a version of Tap Tap Revenge installed, making it the platform’s most popular game ever with around 6.5 million installs of TTR and 3 million installs of its sequel. But a new user wouldn’t know it from the App Store’s homepage - they’d have to drill down to the Games section, where TTR2 is currently ranked as the 7th most popular free game.

There have been many other tweaks suggested for the still-nascent App Store, including a section for higher-priced premium apps and a new method for calculating popularity that measures how much money an app has gained, not just the number of times it has been downloaded (the current system tends to strongly favor cheaper apps). Apple has done an incredible job building this platform and masterminding its massive popularity. Now it just needs to give users a better way to find the cream of the crop, not just the latest fad.

Original post

Comments

[jmmx:]

"that measures how many money an app has gained"

How MANY money?? Do you proofread your articles before posting?

Apr 12 02:55 PM

[jmmx:]

1 BILLION DOWNLOADS!

Now what other phone is going to reach that level any time soon? What competitor has any real chance of replacing iPhone at the top?

Go App Store!

Apr 12 02:57 PM

[Robert DiAl...:]

Pretty powerful company.

Apr 12 08:25 PM

[Cho Cha:]

TTR sucks

Apr 12 08:30 PM

[iphonerulez:]

I'm sure most of Apple's competitors will say this number is meaningless since no other company has had just one site to download from. All the other handsets in existence could download from any site that had apps for that particular cellphone and it would be difficult to keep track of how many downloads were made over the years.

Sure they're all jumping on the one site download business now with their own app stores, but they'll still insist that Apple had nothing to do with that. It was just the natural progression of things. I'm sure Steve Ballmer is saying now that with the huge number of WinMo handsets out there, Windows Mobile Marketplace will probably rack up a billion downloads in a couple of months (if they can put WinMo 6.5 on all those old handsets).

There's also an awful lot of Nokias running S40 & S60 OS platform. Nokia is always spouting off about how many millions of handsets they sell in a week. Hey, if every Nokia owner downloads just ten apps from Ovi, they should reach a billion downloads in a few weeks, right.

We'll see if Apple's billion download mark is as big a deal as their making of it. I still hear that Apple isn't really making any major revenue from all those paid apps. All I ever hear is breakeven just to drive hardware sales. I don't know if that's true or not. Time will tell.

Well I'm excited about the billion mark and I like watching the counter spinning toward the goal. In a 24-hour period I checked, the counter went from 939,540,000 to 945,755,000, so it's cruising right along.

Apr 13 08:04 AM

[winindthedust:]

gigaom.com/2009/04/13/.../

Nice article on link above.

Apr 14 08:03 AM

[winindthedust:]

For an investor, what we are seeing, is an ecosystem build out in an incredibly fast amount of time. This means long term stability and success for Apple.

Stock's will go up and down, as will the economy, but Apple is in the money seat, right now. If they stopped innovating today (which they aren't doing, and probably will never stop doing... it's in their DNA), Apple would be viable for a decade on cruise control (isn't this what Microsoft did?).

However, Apple is continuing to innovate, and push the envelope. It has become a top brand and a household name. It has proven recession proof (even in third world countries, kids have cell phones... no shoes, but they have their cell phones).

Continuing, all of their products tie in together, and have commonality, building on technologies within the company's other products. This spurs growth, as one success, pushes other successes.

I could go on... the point is, Apple is and will be a safe place to put money for the long term. Looking at history, who wouldn't have loved to have bought Apple in 1984 and again in 1998 and again in 2001 and 2006? This is another one of those dates, and Apple has enough momentum double and triple it's previous position.

Apr 14 08:20 AM