Apple App Store closes in on 1 billion downloads

April 10, 2009 | Anthony Ha | Comments | |

Apple’s App Store, where users can find applications for the iPhone and iPod touch, is counting down to its 1 billionth app downloaded.

This seems to be the week of the countdown — i.e., rather than announcing a milestone number, get the buzz early by saying you’re really close, either to 1 billion app downloads or to 1 million followers on Twitter. And yes, Apple’s countdown page is basically a promotional gimmick, complete with offers for prizes like a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card and a MacBook pro for people who “join the celebration” by downloading apps. But Apple’s numbers are worth noting, because the company reported 800 million downloads just a month ago, and hit half a billion back in January. iTunes, on the other hand, took two years to reach that number of songs downloaded.

The countdown page is a nice illustration of this speed of growth, since it keeps counting as each app gets downloaded. As I write this, the number is approaching 928,465,000, but it will probably shoot past that figure by the time this post gets published.

In conjunction with the countdown, Apple is also highlighting its all-time most popular apps, which updates the top apps lists that were released at the end of 2008. The top paid apps are Crash Bandicoot Nitro, followed by Koi Pond (which was previously number one), Enigmo, Bejeweled 2 and iBeer. Meanwhile, Facebook and Google Earth have climbed past Pandora to become the top free apps, followed by Pandora, Tap Tap Range and Shazam.

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About the Author, Anthony Ha

Anthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on enterprise technology, cloud computing, and tech policy. Before joining VentureBeat in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.

  • swag
    Software companies have been spending much of the past decade getting people onto SaaS-based systems, Web-hosted services, subscription models, high-bandwidth Internet-connected services, etc.

    Apple barges in with the iPod and tells us all it's 1995 again and we should all be installing applications on our devices -- nevermind that they are thin clients with pretty fat pipe connectivity compared to their 1995 PC counterparts.

    Am I the only one who thinks that Apple's iPhone application strategy is not only technically regressive, but it's going to end badly?
  • "Am I the only one who thinks that Apple's iPhone application strategy is not only technically regressive, but it's going to end badly?"

    Um, maybe? I guess I don't believe that the act of downloading software is in and of itself all that much of a problem, any more than I have a problem downloading Firefox plugins like Google Gears. Also, AT&T's connectivity isn't all that great, so the more functionality I can get on the client side, the happier I am.