App Store
Apple expected to hit 50 billion app downloads by Wednesday
May 14, 2013: 7:44 AM ETBut if downloads accelerate, the odometer could roll over before midnight Tuesday.
FORTUNE --Apple (AAPL) loves those big numbers with a lot of zeros, and for the past week the company has been promoting -- with prizes, cool facts and a countdown odometer -- another fast-approaching milestone: The 50 billionth app download.
Hard to believe it's been only 15 months since the last one.
- 1 billion: April 2009
- 10 billion: January 2011
- 25 billion: February 2012
- 50 billion: May 2013
As of 1 p.m. EST Tuesday, apps were being downloaded at the rate of 813 per second. At that speed, the App Store would hit 50 billion by 12:39 p.m. Wednesday.
But we expect things to accelerate as the goal approaches.
The customer who downloads the 50 billionth app wins a $10,000 iTunes gift card. See Contest rules.
-
Apple's WWDC 2013: The hottest tickets in town
Five years ago, Apple ran out of seats in two months. This year: 90 seconds.
FORTUNE -- How badly do developers want to write software for Apple's (AAPL) iPhone and Mac App Stores? Here's one measure: In 2008 it took 61 days for the company's annual World Wide Developers Conference to sell out. On Thursday, roughly 5,000 tickets for WWDC 2013 went on sale at 1 p.m. EST. Ninety seconds later, MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Apr 25, 2013 2:55 PM ET -
Apple's controversial cash cow: Free apps that sell extras
In-app purchases set records in February: 76% of U.S. App Store revenue, 90% in Asia
FORTUNE -- The floodgates officially opened on Thursday Oct. 15, 2009. That's when Apple (AAPL) sent a letter to iPhone developers telling them they could adopt a new business model: Give away their apps and make their money selling extras -- new characters, faster cars, better weapons, stronger magic, more gold, etc.
The model was so successful MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Mar 29, 2013 8:25 AM ET -
Apple's App Store vs. Google Play: Where they stand
Both now boast more than 700,000 apps, but Apple's store generates 4.3 times more cash
FORTUNE -- Manufacturers on Google's (GOOG) Android platform may be selling more devices, but Apple's (AAPL) App Store is still the best place to be for developers trying to make a living.
That's the bottom line in the year-end review published Friday by Distimo, a Dutch analytics company:
"On a typical day in November 2012, the revenues in the MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Dec 21, 2012 7:23 AM ET -
Poll: Should Apple accept an app that tracks drone kills?
Drone+ has been rejected three times -- now for "objectionable and crude" content
FORTUNE -- Wired last week reported that for the third time in a month, Apple (AAPL) has rejected an app that would post a location on a map -- and alert users by push notification (with permission, of course) -- every time a U.S. drone is reported to have killed someone in Pakistan, Yeman or Somalia.
The strike data come MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Sep 3, 2012 9:17 AM ET -
Marco Arment: The Hero of Apple's Appageddon
You'd think the company would thank the man who warned them of the problem
FORTUNE -- Late Thursday, Apple (AAPL) public relations reached out to several news organizations -- including the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital -- to alert them that what it described as a "temporary issue" that affected "a small number of users" had been "rectified."
Apple PR apparently neglected to reach out to Marco Arment, a co-founder of MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jul 6, 2012 7:57 AM ET -
Which is the fastest iPhone carrier in your neighborhood?
A new app makes it easy (and fun!) to compare download speeds, but can it be trusted?
According to the snapshot at right, AT&T's (T) cellular service in Park Slope Brooklyn is nearly 5 times faster than Verizon's (VZ) and more than 7 times faster than Sprint's (S).
At least that's the reading I get on my iPhone from my favorite armchair on a new app called CarrierCompare from SwayMarkets.
On my iPad running MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Apr 15, 2012 8:34 AM ET -
Apple keeps it simple: The DOJ's case is 'simply not true'
Cupertino breaks its silence, laying out its legal defense in four sentences
The company's response to US v. Apple Inc. et al., when it came Thursday evening, was as succinct and carefully crafted as any Apple (AAPL) marketing slogan.
What the Department of Justice characterized as a "per se violation" of the Sherman Antitrust Act, Apple is going to paint as an act of liberation.
We got our copy the company's four-sentence response to MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Apr 13, 2012 6:13 AM ETPosted in: Amazon, Antitrust, App Store, Apple, Department of Justice, DOJ, E-book, iBookstore, Publishing, Sherman Antitrust Act -
$1 on Apple's App Store is 89¢ on Kindle and 23¢ on Android
Google could learn something from Amazon about how to run an app store
For 45 days, from mid-January to the end of February, the folks at Flurry analytics ran an interesting experiment.
They found a basket of top-rated apps that are available for the same price on three major app stores -- iOS, Android and Amazon -- whose revenue was generated primarily by in-app purchases. Then they compared the revenue generated by MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Mar 30, 2012 1:47 PM ET -
Canalys: Android apps cost 2.5X more than iPhone apps
The top 100 paid apps total $374.37 on Android Market, $147 on the Apple App Store
Here's a puzzler.
Although conventional wisdom has it that Apple (AAPL) iPhone users are more inclined to pay for apps than the owners of Google (GOOG) Android phones, a survey released Thursday by the market research firm Canalys found that Android apps cost, on average, more than two and a half times as much as iPhone MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Feb 23, 2012 11:26 AM ETPosted in: Android, Android Market, App Store, App Store (iOS), Apple, Canalys, Electronic Arts, Google, iPhone
